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THE

ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES

Map of the Wanderings of Ulysses.

THE

ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES

CHARLES LAMB

WITH A PREFACE BY ANDREW LANG

ILLUSTRATED WITH THIRTY-FOUR DESIGNS BY FREDERICK PRELLER

“It certainly seems a pity that incidents, characters and images, that are part of the
current coin of the world’s intercourse, should not become familiar in the years when imagina¬
tion is keenest and freshest.” — Canon Aingek.

PHILADELPHIA

GEBBIE & CO., Publishers

1890

Copyrighted, 1890, Gebbie & Co.

PREFACE BY ANDREW LANG.

The book which you are going to read is One of the
best stories in the world, and the oldest.

Perhaps the best way to understand all about the tale
is first to look at a map of Greece. You see the country
is almost divided into two parts by two gulfs of the sea,
the Gulf of Corinth on the west, the Gulf of dEgina on
the east. Now just north of the opening of the Gulf of
Corinth you see a big island, Cephalonia, and a little
one called Ithaca. Well, it was in this little island,
Ithaca, that Ulysses lived, the man whose adventures
and voyages you are going to read. When did he live?
Long, long ago ; perhaps fourteen hundred years or
more before the birth of Christ. That would make it
about three thousand two hundred years ago. In those
times Greece was not one country and kingdom as it is
to-day, but there was a separate king, or prince, for
almost every town. Some had more lands and subjects,

less, but of them all Ulysses owned nearly the

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some

PREFACE BY ANDREW LANG.

smallest kingdom and the fewest subjects. In every
little state the king was the leader in war, and the chief
judge, but he had men to help him by their advice, and
he was chief in a little parliament or council.

These old Greeks only knew Greece, and the islands
near it, and the coast of Asia Minor, and Egypt, and
perhaps Sicily. Took what a tiny part of the world
that is on the map ! All the rest of the Mediterranean
was as unknown as the Atlantic before Columbus
crossed it and found America. So they fancied that in
the seas they had never sailed were islands full of
giauts, witches, and cannibals, such as Ulysses met in
the story. All round the whole world, they thought,
ran a great river, which they called Oceanus , or ocean.
Beyond that river the souls or ghosts of dead people
lived, in a gray, dim light, like a foggy day.

But how do we come to hear about Ulysses at all ?
There was no printing in his time. Perhaps the Greeks
could not even write then ; at all events they wrote very
little. The person who gave us the story of Ulysses
must have heard it told by word of mouth, just as you
may hear one child tell another a fairy-tale. Part of it
was remembered, perhaps, and a great deal more must
have been invented, once upon a time, very long ago,
just as a man invents a novel. But it could not be
written down, of course, while there was no writing.
It was just told for pleasure, and the son heard it from
his father, and told it again to his child, when he had a
child of his own.

PREFACE BY ANDREW FANG.

So it went on, till about a thousand years or nine
hundred before the birth of Christ. It would be about
the very time when David, in the Bible, was king of
Israel, or Solomon was building his temple. Then a
poet was born somewhere in Greece, and he heard the
story told, and he made it into a poem.

Well, the poet made all the long poem about Ulysses.
Some people think he merely made it up in his head,
and remembered it off by heart, and repeated it in public
for his daily bread. But I think, myself, that the Greeks
could write by his time, and that he made a book of it
to remember it by. It would not be a printed book like
this, but perhaps it was written on the leaves of a plant
called papyrus , from which our word “paper” is de¬
rived. Or perhaps it was scratched with a sharp point
on very thin plates of lead. Any way, I believe he
wrote it, for it makes four hundred pages of English
printing, and I defy him to have remembered all that
as he made it up.

The poet’s name was Homer. He was the first poet
we know of, and the best, along with Shakespeare.

Nobody knows where he was born, whether in Greece
itself or on the opposite shore of Asia Minor.

He made more poems than one. The first is called
the Iliad , because it is about the siege of Ilios , or Troy,
as we generally call it. Ulysses fought in that war, and,
when the Iliad was finished, people asked, “What
became of the brave Ulysses afterwards?” So Homer
made a new poem to tell them all about that, and this

PREFACE BY ANDREW LANG.

is the poem which gives the story you are going to read.
They called it the Odyssey, or poem about Odysseus , for
Odysseus was the old way of saying Ulysses.

At this time the king of a town on the east side of
Greece had a very beautiful daughter. Her name was
Helen, and she was by far the loveliest woman who
ever lived in the world. Now, all the young princes —
and Odysseus like the rest — wanted to marry her, and
came offering whole flocks and herds for her. But her
father made them all promise that, whoever married
her, all the rest would help him in case he was in any
trouble. So they swore to it, and then her father gave
her, not to Ulysses, but to Menelaus, the king of Sparta.
So the rest went home, and married wives less pretty than
Helen ; but Ulysses married Penelope. When his little,
son, Telemachus, was a baby, bad news came to Ithaca.

The son of a king named Priam, on the other side of
the sea, had sailed from Troy, in Asia Minor, and had
gone to Sparta, where Helen lived with her husband.
There he had fallen in love with her, as, indeed, every¬
body did who saw her ; for she was as kind and charm¬
ing as she was beautiful. Now this young prince,
named Paris, wanted to get her to leave her husband,
and run away with him. Then he asked her to come
for a sail with him, and she went, of course. , When
once he had her on board his ship, off he sailed with her
to Troy, all across the sea. So there was no help for it,
Helen could not get back, and would have been ashamed
to go.

PREFACE BY ANDREW LANG.

Well, when it was told that Menelaus had been robbed
of his wife, all the princes remembered how they had
sworn to help him if ever he needed help. And they
gathered a great army under Agamemnon, the brother
of Menelaus. He was the general. And Ulysses left
his wife and his little boy in Ithaca, and gathered his
fighting men, and sailed away with the rest. They
sailed across the sea to Troy, in Asia Minor, where
Helen was living. And they fought there for ten long
years, till they took the town. Homer tells that part of
the tale in his Iliad, which is all about fighting. When
they had taken Troy Helen was given back to Menelaus,
and the Greeks began to go home. But many great
storms arose, and the ships were scattered over all the
seas, and some were drowned, and others wandered long.
But Ulysses was wandering for ten whole years before
he reached Ithaca. Now the story tells of all the won¬
derful things that happened to him in his wanderings —
how he met giants and goddesses, and monsters of the
deep, and cannibals that eat men’s flesh, and how he
saw the ghosts of the dead. How he was shipwrecked,
and all his men were killed or drowned. How his sou
went to look for him, and met fair Helen happy at home
with her own husband, and how she gave him a present
for his bride when he married. How Ulysses came
home at last, and found young men living in his wife’s
house at his expense, and wanting to marry her, and
take the kingdom. How he killed them all, every one,
gnd how his wife and he were so happy after being

PREFACE BY ANDREW LANG.

separated from each other for twenty years. And though
she was not young any more, nor so pretty as she had
been, he only cared for her , and longed only for her
and his own little rocky island. Yet a goddess had
offered to make him immortal — that is, never to die —
and always live with her in a beautiful place. But he
preferred his own home and his wife. The poem in
which this tale is told has been read now by all the
world for about three thousand years. The story here
is made out of the poem, for children, by Charles Lamb,
who wrote many other delightful books. But, in the
meantime, forgive me for having kept you so long from

The Adventures of Ulysses.

Andrew Lang.

Contents

PAGE

Preface, by Andrew Lang ........ 3

Introduction, by Charles Lamb . 13

CHAPTER I.

The Cicons — The fruit of the lotus-tree — Polyphemus and the
Cyclops — The kingdom of the winds, and God Ajolus’ fatal
present — The Lsestrygonian man-eaters . . . .15

CHAPTER II.

The house of Circe — Men changed into beasts — The voyage to hell

— The banquet of the dead ....... 37

CHAPTER III.

The song of the Sirens — Scylla and Charybdis — The oxen of the

Sun — The judgment— The crew killed by lightning . . 60

CHAPTER IV.

The island of Calypso — Immortality refused . . . . .77

CHAPTER V.

The tempest — The sea-bird’s gift — The escape by swimming — The
sleep in the woods . . . . . . • . -85

CHAPTER VI.

The princess Nausicaa — The washing — The game with the ball —

The Court of Phaeacia and king Alciuous . . . -95

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CONTENTS.

CHAPTER VII.

PAGE

The songs of Demodocus — The convoy home — The mariners trans¬
formed to stone — The young shepherd . 106

CHAPTER VIII.

The change from a king to a beggar — Eumaeus and the herdsmen

— Telemachus .......... 122

CHAPTER IX.

The queen’s suitors — The battle of the beggars— The armor taken

down — The meeting with Penelope . 140

CHAPTER X.

The madness from above —The bow of Ulysses — The slaughter —

The conclusion ......... 152

Index op Proper Names . 165

f *

I L LUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

Map of Ulysses’ Wanderings . . . Frontispiece.

Ulysses Going Forth on his Travels . . . .13

Tailpiece . 14

Polyphemus and the Followers of Ulysses . . .15

Conquest of Ismarus, Capital of the Cicons . . .17

Escaping from Polyphemus . 29

Tailpiece . 34

Circe . 35

The Warning of Mercury to Circe . 37

Mercury Instructing Ulysses how to Resist Circe . 41

Ulysses in Hades . 51

Tailpiece . 59

Circe Warns Ulysses of the Sirens ..... 60

The Sirens . 65

The Followers of Ulysses Slay the Oxen of Apollo . 73.

Tailpiece . 76

On the Island of Calypso . 77

Calypso . 81

Tailpiece . . 84

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ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

Ulysses Departs from Calypso and Embarks for Ithaca 85

Leucothea Rescues Ulysses . 89

Tailpiece . 94

The Princess Nausicaa and Ulysses . 95

The Princess Nausicaa and Ulysses . 99

Tailpiece . 105

The Song of Demodoc'us . 106

Ulysses Awakens in Ithaca . 115

Ulysses and the Goddess Minerva . 119

Tailpiece . 121

The Transformation of Ulysses by Minerva . . . 122

Tailpiece . 139

The Suitors of Penelope . 140

Tailpiece . 151

Ulysses Slays the Suitors of Penelope . . . .152

Tailpiece . 163

Ulysses Going Forth on his Travels.

INTRODUCTION.

This work treats of the conduct and sufferings of
Ulysses. The picture which it exhibits is that of a
brave man struggling with adversity ; by a wise use of
events, and with an inimitable presence of mind under
difficulties, forcing out a way for himself through the
severest trials to which human life can be exposed ;
with enemies natural and preternatural surrounding
him on all sides. The agents in this tale, besides men
and women, are giants, enchanters, sirens : things
which denote external force or internal temptations, the
twofold danger which a wise fortitude must expect to
encounter in its course through this world. The fic¬
tions contained in it will be found to comprehend some
of the most admired inventions of Grecian mythology.

The groundwork of the story is the Odyssey , but the
moral and the coloring are comparatively modern. By
avoiding the prolixity which marks the speeches and
the descriptions in Hcnner , I have gained a rapidity to
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INTRODUCTION.

the narration which I hope will make it more attractive
and give it more the air of a romance to young readers,
though I am sensible that by the curtailment I have
sacrificed in many places the manners to the passion,
the subordinate characteristics to the essential interest
of the story. The attempt is not to be considered as
seeking a comparison with any of the direct translations,
of the Odyssey, either in prose or verse, though if I
were to state the obligations which I have had to one
obsolete version,1 I should have run the hazard of de¬
priving myself of the very slender degree of reputation
which I could hope to acquire from a trifle like the
present undertaking.

CHARLES LAMB.

1 The translation of Homer by Chapman in the reign of James I.

Polyphemus and the Followers of Ulysses.

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

CHAPTER I.

The Cicons — The fruit of the lotos-tree — Polyphemus and the Cyclops
- — The kingdom of the winds, and God epolus’ fatal present — The
Uaestrygonian man-eaters.

This history tells of the wanderings of Ulysses and
his followers in their return from Troy, after the de¬
struction of that famous city of Asia by the Grecians.
He was inflamed with a desire of seeing again, after a
ten years’ absence, his wife and native country Ithaca.
He was king of a barren spot, and a poor country, in
comparison of the fruitful plains of Asia which he was
leaving, or the wealthy kingdoms which he touched
upon in his return ; yet wherever he came he could
never see a soil which appeared in his eyes half so sweet
or desirable as his country earth. This made him re¬
fuse the offers of the goddess Calypso to stay with her,
and partake of her immortality, in the delightful island :

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16 the; adventures of ulysses.

and this gave him strength to break from the enchant¬
ments of Circe, the daughter of the Sun.

From Troy ill winds cast Ulysses and his fleet upon
the coast of the Cicons, a people hostile to the Grecians.
Landing his forces, he laid siege to their chief city Is-
marus, which he took, and with it much spoil, and slew
many people. But success proved fatal to him ; for his
soldiers, elated with the spoil and the good store of pro¬
visions which they found in that place, fell to eating
and drinking, forgetful of their safety, till the Cicons,
who inhabited the coast, had time to assemble their
friends and allies from the interior, who, mustering in
prodigious force, set upon the Grecians, while they neg¬
ligently revelled and feasted, and slew many of them
and recovered the spoil. They, dispirited and thinned
in their numbers, with difficulty made their retreat good
to the ships.

Thence they set sail, sad at heart, yet something
cheered that with such fearful odds against them they
had not all been utterly destroyed. A dreadful tempest
ensued, which for two nights and two days tossed them
about, but the third day the weather cleared, and they
had hopes of a favorable gale to carry them to Ithaca ;
but as they doubled the Cape of Malea, suddenly a north
wind arising, drove them back as far as Cytliera. After
that, for the space of nine days, contrary winds contin¬
ued to drive them in an opposite direction to the point
to which they were bound, and the tenth day they put
in at a shore where a race of men dwell that are sus-

Conquest of Ismarus, Capital of the Cicons.

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THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

tained by the fruit of the lotos-tree. Here Ulysses sent
some of his men to laud for fresh water, who were met
by certain of the inhabitants, that gave them some of
their country food to eat ; not with any ill intention
towards them, though in the event it proved pernicious ;
for, having eaten of this fruit, so pleasant it proved to
their appetite, that they in a minute quite forgot all
thoughts of home, or of their countrymen, or of ever
returning back to the ships to give an account of what
sort of inhabitants dwelt there, but they would needs
stay and live there among them, and eat of that pre¬
cious food forever ; and when Ulysses sent other of his
men to look for them, and to bring them back by force,
they strove, and wept, and would not leave their food
for heaven itself, so much the pleasure of that enchant¬
ing fruit had bewitched them. But Ulysses caused
them to be bound hand and foot, and cast under the
hatches ; and set sail with all possible speed from that
baneful coast, lest others after them might taste the
lotos, which had such strange qualities to make men
forget their native country and the thoughts of home.

Coasting on all that night by unknown and out of the
way shores, they came by day-break to the land where
the Cyclops dwell, a sort of giant shepherds that neither
sow nor plough, but the earth untilled produces for them
rich wheat and barley and grapes, yet they have neither
bread nor wine, nor know the arts of cultivation, nor
care to know them ; for they live each man to himself,
without laws or government, or anything like a state or

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

kingdom, but their dwellings are in caves, on the steep
heads of mountains, every man’s household governed by
his own caprice, or not governed at all, their wives and
children as lawless as themselves, none caring for others,
but each doing as he or she thinks good. Ships or boats
they have none, nor artificers to make them, no trade or
commerce, or wish to visit other shores ; yet they have
convenient places for harbors and for shipping. Here
Ulysses with a chosen party of twelve followers landed,
to explore what sort of men dwelt there, whether hos¬
pitable and friendly to strangers, or altogether wild and
savage, for as yet no dwellers appeared in sight.

The first sign of habitation which they came to w?as a
giant’s cave rudely fashioned, but of a size which be¬
tokened the vast proportions of its owner, the pillars
which supported it being the bodies of huge oaks or pines,
in the natural state of the tree, and all about showed
more marks of strength than skill in whoever built it.
Ulysses, entering in, admired the savage contrivances
and artless structure of the place, and longed to see the
tenant of so outlandish a mansion ; but well conjecturing
that gifts would have more avail in extracting courtesy
than strength could succeed in forcing it, from such a
one as he expected to find the inhabitant, he resolved to
flatter his hospitality with a present of Greek wine, of
which he had store in twelve great vessels ; so strong
that no one ever drank it without an infusion of twenty
parts of water to one of wine, yet the fragrance of it
even then so delicious, that it would have vexed a man

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

who smelled it to abstain from tasting it ; but whoever
tasted it, it was able to raise his courage to the height of
heroic deeds. Taking with them a goatskin flagon full
of this precious liquor, they ventured into the recesses
of the cave. Here they pleased themselves a whole day
with beholding the giant’s kitchen, where the flesh of
sheep and goats lay strewed, his dairy where goat-milk
stood ranged in troughs and pails, his pens where he
kept his live animals ; but those he had driven forth to
pasture with him when he went out in the morning.
While they were feasting their eyes with a sight of these
curiosities, their ears were suddenly deafened with a
noise like the falling of a house. It was the owner of
the cave who had been abroad all day feeding his flock,
as his custom was, in the mountains, and now drove
them home in the evening from pasture. He threw
down a pile of fire-wood, which he had been gathering
against supper-time, before the mouth of the cave, which
occasioned the crash they heard. The Grecians hid
themselves in the remote parts of the cave, at sight of
the uncouth monster. It was Polyphemus, the largest
and savagest of the Cyclops, who boasted himself to be
the son of Neptune. He looked more like a mountain
crag- than a man, and to his brutal bodv he had a brutish
mind answerable. He drove his flock, all that gave
milk, to the interior of the cave, but left the rams and
the lie-goats without. Then taking up a stone so massy
that twenty oxen could not have drawn it, he placed it
at the mouth of the cave, to defend the entrance, and

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

sat him down to milk his ewes and his goats ; which
done, he lastly kindled a fire, and throwing his great
eye round the cave (for the Cyclops have no more than
one eye, and that placed in the midst of their forehead),
by the glimmering light he discerned some of Ulysses’
men.

“ Ho, guests, what are you? merchants or wandering
thieves?” he bellowed out in a voice which took from
them all power of reply, it was so astounding.

Only Ulysses summoned resolution to answer, that
they came neither for plunder nor traffic, but were
Grecians who had lost their way, returning from Troy ;
which famous city, under the conduct of Agamemnon,
the renowned son of Atreus, they had sacked, and laid
level with the ground. Yet now they prostrated them¬
selves humbly before his feet, whom they acknowledged
to be mightier than they, and besought him that he
would bestow the rites of hospitality upon them, for that
Jove was the avenger of wrongs done to strangers, and
would fiercely resent any injury which they might
suffer.

“Fool,” said the Cyclop, “ to come so far to preach
to me the fear of the gods. We Cyclops care not for
your Jove, whom you fable to be nursed by a goat, nor
any of your blessed ones. We are stronger than they,
and dare bid open battle to Jove himself, though you
and all your fellows of the earth join with him.” And
he bade them tell him where their ship was, in which
they came, and whether they had any companions.

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

But Ulysses, with a wise caution, made answer, that
they had no ship or companions, but were unfortunate
men whom the sea, splitting their ship in pieces, had
dashed upon his coast, and they alone had escaped. He
replied nothing, but gripping two of the nearest of them,
as . if they had been no more than children, he dashed
their brains out against the earth, and (shocking to
relate) tore in pieces their limbs, and devoiired them, yet
warm and trembling, making a lion’s meal of them,
lapping the blood ; for the Cyclops are man-eaters , and
esteem human flesh to be a delicacy far above goat’s or
kid’s ; though by reason of their abhorred customs few
men approach their coast except some stragglers, or now
and then a shipwrecked mariner. At a sight so horrid
Ulysses and his men were like distracted people. He,
when he had made an end of his wicked supper, drained
a draught of goat’s milk down his prodigious throat,
and lay down and slept among his goats. Then Ulysses
drew his sword, and half resolved to thrust it with all
his might in at the bosom of the sleeping monster ; but
wiser thoughts restrained him, else they had there
without help all perished, for none but Polyphemus him¬
self could have removed that mass of stone which he had
placed to guard the entrance. vSo they were constrained
to abide all that night in fear.

When day came the Cyclop awoke, and kindling a
fire, made his breakfast of two other of his unfortunate
prisoners, then milked his goats as he was accustomed,
and pushing aside the vast stone, and shutting it again

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

when he had done, upon the prisoners, with as much
ease as a man opens and shuts a quiver’s lid, he let out
his flock, and drove them before him with whistlings (as
sharp as winds in storms) to the mountains.

Then Ulysses, of whose strength or cunning the Cy¬
clop seems to have had as little heed as of an infants,
being left alone, with the remnant of his men which the
Cyclop had not devoured, gave manifest proof how far
manly wisdom excels brutish force. He chose a stake
from among the wood which the Cyclop had piled up for
firing, in length and thickness like a mast, which he
sharpened and hardened in the fire, and selected four
men, and instructed them what they should do with this
stake, and made them perfect in their parts.

When the evening was come, the Cyclop drove home
his sheep ; and as fortune directed it, either of purpose,
or that his memory wras overruled by the gods to his
hurt (as in the issue it proved), he drove the males of
his flock, contrary to his custom, along with the dams
into the pens. Then shutting-to the stone of the cave,
he fell to his horrible supper. When he had despatched
two more of the Grecians, Ulysses waxed bold with the
contemplation of his project, and took a bowl of Greek
wine, and merrily dared the Cyclop to drink.

“Cyclop,” he said, “take a bowl of wine from the
hand -of your guest ; it may serve to digest the man’s
flesh that you have eaten, and show what drink our ship
held before it went down. All I ask in recompense, if
you find it good, is to be dismissed in a whole skin.

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

Truly you must look to have few visitors, if you observe
this new custom of eating your guests.”

The brute took and drank, and vehemently enjoyed
the taste of wine, which was new to him, and swilled
again at the flagon, and entreated for more, and prayed
Ulysses to tell him his name, that he might bestow a
gift upon the man who had given him such brave liquor.
The Cyclops (he said) had grapes, but this rich juice (he
swore) was simply divine. Again Ulysses plied him
with the wine, and the fool drank it as fast as he poured
out, and again he asked the name of his benefactor,
which Ulysses cunningly dissembling, said : “My name
is Noman ; my kindred and friends in my own country
call me Noman.” “Then,” said the Cyclop, “ this is
the kindness I will show thee, Noman ; I will eat thee
last of all thy friends.” He had scarce expressed his
savage kindness when the fumes of the strong wine
overcame him, and he reeled down upon the floor and
sank into a dead sleep..

Ulysses watched his time, while the monster lay in¬
sensible, and heartening up his men, they placed the
sharp end of the stake in the fire till it was heated red-
hot, and some god gave them a courage beyond that
which they were used to have, and the four men with
difficulty bored the sharp end of the huge stake, which
they had heated red-hot, right into the eye of the
■drunken cannibal, and Ulysses helped to thrust it in
with all his might, still farther and farther, with effort,
as men bore with an auger, till the scalded blood gushed

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

out, and the eye-ball smoked, and the strings of the eye
cracked, as the burning rafter broke in it, and the eye
hissed, as hot iron hisses when it is plunged into water.

He waking, roared with the pain so loud that all the
cavern broke into claps like thunder. They fled, and
dispersed into corners. He plucked the burning stake
from his eye, and hurled the wood madly about the
cave. Then he cried out with a mighty voice for his
brethren the Cyclops, that dwelt hard by in caverns
upon hills ; they hearing the terrible shout came flocking
from all parts to inquire what ailed Polyphemus? and
what cause he had for making such horrid clamors in
the night-time to break their sleeps ? if his fright pro¬
ceeded from any mortal ? if strength or craft had given
him his death’s blow? He made answer from within
that Noman had hurt him, Noman had killed him,
Noman was with him in the cave. They replied, “If
no man has hurt thee, and no man is with thee, then
thou art alone, and the evil that afflicts thee is from the
hand of heaven, which none can resist or help.” So
they left him and went their way, thinking that some
disease troubled him. He, blind and ready to split with
the anguish of the pain, went groaning up and down in
the dark, to find the doorway, which when he found, he
removed the stone, and sat in the threshold, feeline if
lie could lay hold on any man going out with the sheep,
which (the day now breaking) were beginning to issue
forth to their accustomed pastures. But Ulysses, whose
first artifice in giving himself that ambiguous name, had

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

succeeded so well with the Cyclop, was not of a wit so
gross to be caught by that palpable device. But casting
about in his mind all the ways which he could contrive
for escape (no less than all their lives depending on the
success), at last he thought of this expedient. He made
knots of the osier twigs upon which the Cyclop com¬
monly slept, with which he tied the fattest and fleeciest
of the rams together, three in a rank, and under the
belly of the middle ram he tied a man, and himself last,
wrapping himself fast with both his hands in the rich
wool of one, the fairest of the flock.

And now the sheep began to issue forth very fast ; the
males went first, the females unmilked stood by, bleat¬
ing and requiring the hand of their shepherd in vain to
milk them, their full bags sore with being unemptied,
but he much sorer with the loss of sight. Still as the
males passed, he felt the backs of those fleecy fools,
never dreaming that they carried his enemies under their
bellies : so they passed on till the last ram came loaded
with his wool and Ulysses together. He stopped that
ram and felt him, and had his hand once in the hair of
Ulysses, yet knew it not, and he chid the ram for being
last, and spoke to it as if it understood him, and asked it
whether it did not wish that its master has his eye again,
which that abominable Noman with his execrable rout
had put out, when they had got him down with wine ;
and he willed the ram to tell him whereabouts in the
cave his enemy lurked, that he might dash his brains
and strew them about, to ease his heart of that torment-

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

ing revenge which rankled in it. After a deal of such
foolish talk to the beast he let it go.

When Ulysses found himself free, he let go his hold,
and assisted in disengaging his friends. The rams
which had befriended them they carried off with them
to the ships, where their companions with tears in their
eyes received them, as men escaped from death. They
plied their oars, and set their sails, and when they were
got as far off from shore as a voice would reach, Ulysses
cried out to the Cyclop: “Cyclop, thou should’st not
have so much abused thy monstrous strength, as to
devour thy guests. Jove by my hand sends thee requital
to pay thy savage inhumanity.” The Cyclop heard,
and came forth enraged, and in his anger he plucked a
fragment of a rock, and threw it with blind fuiy at the
ships : it narrowly escaped lighting upon the bark in
which Ulysses sat, but with the fall it raised so fierce an
ebb, as bore back the ship till it almost touched the
shore. “Cyclop,” said Ulysses, “if any ask thee who
imposed on thee that unsightly blemish in thine eye,
say it was Ulysses, son of Uaertes : the king of Ithaca
am I called, the waster of cities.” Then they crowded
sail, and beat the old sea, and forth they went with a
forward gale ; sad for forepast losses, yet glad to have
escaped at any rate ; till they came to the isle where
CEolus reigned, who is god of the winds.

Here Ulysses and his men were courteously received
by the monarch, who showed him his twelve children
which have rule over the twelve winds. A month they

Escaping from Polyphemus.

(29)

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

stayed and feasted with him, and at the end of the month
he dismissed them with many presents, and gave to
Ulysses at parting an ox’s hide, in which \tfere enclosed
all the winds : only he left abroad the western wind, to
play upon their sails and waft them gently home to
Ithaca. This bag, bound in a glittering silver band, so
close that no breath could escape, Ulysses hung up at
the mast. His companions did not know its contents,
but guessed that the monarch had given to him some
treasures of gold or silver.

Nine days they sailed smoothly, favored by the western
wind, and by the tenth they approached so nigh as to
discern lights kindled on the shores of their country
earth ; when, by ill fortune, Ulysses, overcome with
fatigue of watching the helm, fell asleep. The mariners
seized the opportunity, and one of them said to the rest:
“A fine time has this leader of ours : wherever he goes he
is sure of presents, when we come away empty-handed ;
and see, what king Aeolus has given him, store no doubt
of gold and silver.” A word was enough to those

covetous wretches, who quick as thought untied the bag,
and instead of gold, out rushed with mighty noise all
the winds. Ulysses with the noise awoke and saw their
mistake, but too late, for the ship was driving with all
the winds back far from Ithaca, far as to the island of
Hjolus from which they had parted, in one hour measur¬
ing back what in nine days they had scarcely tracked,
and in sight of home too ! Up he flew amazed, and
raving doubted whether he should not fling himself into

o2 THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

tlie sea for grief of his bitter disappointment. At last
he hid himself under the hatches for shame. And
scarce could he be prevailed upon, when he was told he
was arrived again in the harbor of king Aeolus, to go
himself or send to that monarch for a second succor ; so
much the disgrace of having misused his royal bounty
(though it was the crime of his followers and not his
own) weighed upon him : and when at last he went, and
took a herald with him, and came where the god sat on
his throne, feasting with his children, he would not
trust in among them at their meat, but set himself down
like one unworthy in the threshold.

Indignation seized Aeolus to behold him in that man¬
ner returned ; and he said : “ Ulysses, what has brought
you back ? are you so soon tired of your country ? or
did not our present please you? we thought we had
given you a kingly passport. ’ ’ Ulysses made answer :
“ My men have done this ill mischief to me : they did
it while I slept.” “Wretch,” said Aeolus, “avaunt,

and quit our shores : it fits not us to convoy men whom

the gods hate, and will have perish.”

Forth they sailed, but with far different hopes than
when they left the same harbor the first time with all
the winds confined, only the west-wind suffered to play
upon their sails to waft them in gentle murmurs to
Ithaca. They were now the sport of every gale that
blew, and despaired of ever seeing home more. Now
those covetous mariners were cured of their surfeit for

the ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES. 3$

gold, and would not have touched it if it had lain in
untold heaps before them.

Six days and nights they drove along, • and on the
seventh day they put in to Uamos, a port of the Uaestry-
gonians. So spacious this harbor was, that it held with
ease all their fleets, which rode at anchor, safe from any
storms, all but the ship in which Ulysses was embarked.
He, as if prophetic of the mischance which followed,
kept still without the harbor, making fast his bark to a
rock at the land’s point, which he climbed with purpose
to survey the country. He saw a city with smoke as¬
cending from the roofs, but neither ploughs going, nor
oxen yoked, nor any sign of agricultural works. Mak¬
ing choice of two men, he sent them to the citv to
explore what sort of inhabitants dwelt there. His
messengers had not gone far before they met a damsel,
of stature surpassing human, who was coming to draw
water from a spring. They asked her who dwelt in
that land. She made no reply, but led them in silence
to her father’s palace. He was a monarch and named
Antiphas. He and all his people were giants. When
they entered the palace, a woman, the mother of the
damsel, but far taller than she, rushed abroad and called!
for Antiphas. He came, and snatching up one of the
two men, made as if he would devour him. The other
fled. Antiphas raised a mighty shout, and instantly,
this way and that, multitudes of gigantic people issued
out at the gates( and making for the harbor, tore up
huge pieces of the rocks, and flung them at the ships

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

which lay there, all which they utterly overwhelmed
and sank ; and the unfortunate bodies of men which
floated, and which the sea did not devour, these canni¬
bals thrust through with harpoons, like fishes, and bore
them off to their dire feast. Ulysses with his single
bark that had never entered the harbor escaped ; that
bark which was now the only vessel left of all the gallant
navy that had set sail with him from Troy. He pushed
off from the shore, cheering the sad remnant of his men,
whom horror at the sight of their countrymen’s fate had
almost turned to marble.

Circe.

(35)

■

The Warning of Mercury to Circe.

CHAPTER II.

The house of Circe — Men changed into beasts — The voyage to hell —
The banquet of the dead.

On went the single ship till it came to the island of
iEea, where Circe the dreadful daughter of the Sun
dwelt. She was deeply skilled in magic, a haughty
beauty, and had hair like the Sun. The Sun was her
parent, and begot her and her brother Aretes (such
another as herself) upon Perse, daughter to Oceanus.

Here a dispute arose among Ulysses’ men, which of

them should go ashore and explore the country ; for

there was a necessity that some should go to procure

water and provisions, their stock of both being nigh

spent : but their hearts failed them when they called to

mind the shocking fate of their fellows whom the

Laestrygonians had eaten, and those which the foul

Cyclop Polyphemus had crushed between his jaws *

which moved them so tenderly in the recollection that

they wept. But tears never yet supplied any man’s

wants ; this Ulysses knew full well, and dividing his

men (all that were left) into two companies, at the head

(37)

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

of one of which was himself, and at the head of the
other Eurylochus, a man of tried courage, he cast lots
which of them should go up into the country, and the
lot fell upon Eurylochus and his company, two and
twenty in number ; who took their leave, with tears, of
Ulysses and his men that stayed, whose eyes wore the
same wet badges of weak humanity, for they surely
thought never to see these their companions again, but
that on every coast where they should come, they should
find nothing but savages and cannibals.

Eurylochus and his party proceeded up the country,
till in a dale they descried the house of Circe, built of
bright stone, by the road’s side. Before her gate lay
many beasts, as wolves, lions, leopards, which, by her
art, of wild she had rendered tame. These arose when
they saw strangers, and ramped upon their hinder paws,
and fawned upon Eurylochus and his men, who dreaded
the effects of such monstrous kindness ; and staying- at
the gate they heard the enchantress within, sitting at
her loom, singing such strains as suspended all mortal
faculties, while she wove a web, subtle and glorious, and
of texture inimitable on earth, as all the housewiferies
of the deities are. Strains so ravishingly sweet pro¬
voked even the sagest and prudentest heads among the
party to knock and call at the gate. The shining gate
the enchantress opened, and bade them come in and
feast. They unwise followed, all but Eurylochus, who
stayed without the gate, suspicious that some train was
laid for them. Being entered, she placed them in

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

chairs of state, and set before them meal and honey and
Smyrna wine ; bnt mixed with baneful drugs of power¬
ful enchantment. When they had eaten of these, and
drunk of her cup, she touched them with her charming-
rod, and straight they were transformed into swine,
having the bodies of the swine, the bristles, and snout,
and grunting noise of that animal ; only they still
retained the minds of men, which' made them the more
to lament their brutish transformation. Having; changed
them, she shut them up in her sty with many more
whom her wicked sorceries had formerly changed, and
gave them swine’s food, mast, and acorns, and chestnuts,
to eat.

Burylochus, who beheld nothing of these sad changes
from where he was stationed without the gate, only
instead of his companions that entered (who he thought
had all vanished by witchcraft) beheld a herd of swine,
hurried back to the ship, to give an account of what he
had seen : blit so frightened and perplexed, that he could
give no distinct report of anything, only he remembered
a palace, and a woman singing at her work, and gates
guarded by lions. But his companions, he said, were
all vanished.

Then Ulysses suspecting some fonl witchcraft,
•snatched his sword, and his bow, and commanded
Burylochus instantly to lead him to the place. But
Burylochus fell down, and embracing his knees, be¬
sought him by the name of a man whom the gods had

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

iii their protection, not to expose his safety, and the
safety of them all, to certain destruction.

“Do thou then stay, Eurylochus ! ” answered Ulysses :
“eat thou and drink in the ship in safety ; while I go
alone upon this adventure : necessity, from whose law
is no appeal, compels me.”

So saying he quitted the ship and went on shore,
accompanied by none ; none had the hardihood to offer
to partake that perilous adventure with him, so much
they dreaded the enchantments of the witch. Singly
he pursued his journey till he came to the shining gates
which stood before her mansion : but when he essayed
to put his foot over her threshold, he was suddenly
stopped by the apparition of a young man, bearing a
golden rod in his hand, who was the god Mercury. He
held Ulysses by the wrist, to stay his entrance ; and
“ Whither wonldest thon go ? ” he said ; “ O, thou most
erring of the sons of men ! knowest thou not that this is
the house of great Circe, where she keeps thy friends in
a loathsome sty, changed from the fair forms of men
into the detestable and ugly shapes of swine ? art thou
prepared to share their fate, from which nothing can
ransom thee?” But neither his words, nor his coming
from heaven, could stop the daring foot of Ulysses,
whom compassion for the misfortune of his friends had
rendered careless of danger : which when the god per¬
ceived, he had pity to see valor so misplaced, and gave
him the flower of the herb moly , which is sovereign
against enchantments. The moly is a small unsightly

Mercury Instructing Ulysses how to Resist Circe.

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

root, its virtues but little known, and in low estimation •
the dull shepherd treads on it every day with his clouted
shoes ; but it bears a small white flower, which is
medicinal against charms, blights, mildews, and damps.
— “Take this in thy hand,” said Mercury, “and with
it boldly enter her gates : when she shall strike thee
with her rod, thinking to change thee, as she has
changed thy friends, boldly rush in upon her with thy
sword, and extort from her the dreadful oath of the
gods, that she will use no enchantments against thee :
then force her to restore thy abused companions.” He
gave Ulysses the little white flower, and instructing him
how to use it, vanished.

When the god was departed, Ulysses with loud knock-
ings beat at the gate of the palace. The shining gates
were opened, as before, and great Circe with hospitable
cheer invited in her guest. She placed him on a throne
with more distinction than she had used to his fellows,
she mingled wine in a costly bowl, and he drank of it,
mixed with those poisonous drugs. When he had
drunk, she struck him with her charming-rod, and
“To your sty,” she cried ; “out, swine; mingle with
your companions.” But those powerful words were not
proof against the preservative which Mercury had given
to Ulysses ; he remained unchanged, and as the god
had directed him, boldly charged the witch with his
sword, as if he meant to take her life : which when she
saw, and perceived that her charms were weak against
the antidote which Ulysses bore about him, she cried

44 THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

out and bent her knees beneath his sword, embracing
his, and said, l' Who or what manner of man art thou?
Never drank any man before thee of this cup, but he
repented it in some brute’s form. Thy shape remains
unaltered as thy mind. Thou canst be none other than
Ulysses, renowned above all the world for wisdom,
whom the fates have long since decreed that I must love.
This haughty bosom bends to thee. O Ithacan, a
goddess woos thee to her bed.”

“ O Circe,” he replied, “ how canst thou treat of love
or marriage with one whose friends thou hast turned
into beasts ? and now offerest him thy hand in wedlock,
only that thou miglitest have him in thy power, to live
the life of a beast with thee, naked, effeminate, subject
to thy will, perhaps to be advanced in time to the honor
of a place in thy sty. What pleasure canst thou promise,
which may tempt the soul of a reasonable man ? thy
meats, spiced with poison ; or thy wines, drugged with
death? Thou must swear to me, that thou wilt never
attempt against me the treasons which thou hast prac¬
tised upon my friends.” The enchantress, won by the
terror of his threats, or by the violence of that new love
which she felt kindling in her veins for him, swore by
Styx, the great oath of the gods, that she meditated no
injury to him. Then Ulysses made show of gentler
treatment, which gave her hopes of inspiring him with
a passion equal to that which she felt. She called her
handmaids, four that served her in chief, who were
daughters to her silver fountains, to her sacred rivers,

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

and to her consecrated woods, to deck her apartments,

to spread rich carpets, and set out her silver tables with

dishes of the purest gold, and meat as precious as that

which the gods eat, to entertain her guest. One

brought water to wash his feet, and one brought wine

to chase away, with a refreshing sweetness, the sorrows

that had come of late so thick upon him and hurt his

noble mind. They strewed perfumes on his head, and

after he had bathed in a bath of the choicest aromatics,

they brought him rich and costly apparel to put on.

Then he was conducted to a throne of massive silver,

and a regale, fit for Jove when he banquets, was placed

before him. But the feast which Ulysses desired was to

see his friends (the partners of his voyage) once more in

the shapes of men ; and the food which could give him

nourishment must be taken in at his eyes. Because he

missed this sight, he sat melancholy and thoughtful, and

would taste of none of the rich delicacies placed before

him. Which when Circe noted, she easily divined the

cause of his sadness, and leaving the seat in which she

sat throned, went to her sty, and led abroad his men,

who came in like swine, and filled the ample hall, where

Ulysses sat, with grantings. Hardly had he time to let

his sad eye run over their altered forms and brutal

metamorphosis, when with an ointment which she

smeared over them, suddenly their bristles fell off, and

they started up in their own shapes men as before.

They knew their leader again, and clung about him

with joy of their late restoration, and some shame for
4

46 THE ADVENTURES OF UEYSSES.

their late change; and wept so lond, blubbering out
their joy in broken accents, that the palace was filled
with a sound of pleasing mourning, and the witch her¬
self, great Circe, was not unmoved at the sight. To
make her atonement complete, she sent for the remnant
of Ulysses’ men who stayed behind at the ship, giving
up their great commander for lost ; who when they
came, and saw him again alive, circled with their fel¬
lows, no expression can tell what joy they felt ; they
even cried out with rapture, and to have seen their
frantic expressions of mirth, a man might have supposed
that they were just in sight of their country earth, the
cliffs of rocky Ithaca. Only Bury loch us would hardly
be persuaded to enter that palace of wonders, for he
remembered with a kind of horror how his companions
had vanished from sight.

Then great Circe spake, and gave order, that there
should be no more sadness among them, nor remember¬
ing of past sufferings. For as yet they feared like men
that are exiles from their country, and if a gleam of mirth
shot among them, it was suddenly quenched with the
thought of their helpless and homeless condition. Her
kind persuasions wrought upon Ulysses and the rest,
that they spent twelve months in all manner of delight
with her in her palace. For Circe was a powerful
magician, and conld command the moon from her
sphere, or unroot the solid oak from its place to make it
dance for their diversion, and by the help of her illusions
she conld vary the taste of pleasures, and contrive

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

delights, recreations, and jolly pastimes, to “fetch the
day abont from sun to sun, and rock the tedious year as
in a delightful dream.”

At length Ulysses awoke from the trance of the
faculties into which her charms had thrown him, and
the thought of home returned with tenfold vigor to
goad and sting him ; that home where he had left his
virtuous wife Penelope, and his young sou Telemachus.
One day when Circe had been lavish of her caresses,
and was in her kindest humor, he moved to her subtly,
and as it were afar off, the question of his home-return ;
to which she answered firmly, “O Ulysses, it is not in
my power to detain one whom the gods have destined
to further trials. But leaving me, before you pursue
your journey home, you must visit the house of Hades,
or Death, to consult the shade of Tiresias the Theban
prophet ; to whom alone, of all the dead, Proserpine,
queen of hell, has committed the secret of future events :
it is he that must inform you whether you shall ever
see again your wife and country.” “O Circe,” he
cried; “that is impossible: who shall steer my course
to Pluto’s kingdom? Never ship had strength to make
that voyage.” “Seek no guide,” she replied; “but
raise your mast, and hoist your white sails, and sit in
your ship in peace : the north wind shall waft you
through the seas, till you shall cross the expanse of the
ocean, and come to where grow the poplar groves, and
willows pale, of Proserpine : where Pyriphlegethon and
Cocytus and Acheron mingle their waves. Cocytus is

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

an arm of Styx, the forgetful river. Here dig a pit, and
make it a cubit broad and a cubit long, and pour in
milk and honey, and wine, and the blood of a ram, and
the blood of a black ewe, and turn away thy face while
thou pourest in, and the dead shall come flocking to
taste the milk and the blood ; but suffer none to ap¬
proach thy offering till thou hast inquired of Tiresias
all which thou wishest to know.”

He did as great Circe had appointed. He raised his
mast, and hosted his white sails, and sat in his ship in
peace. The north wind wafted him through the seas,
till he crossed the ocean, and came to the sacred woods
of Proserpine. He stood at the confluence of the three
floods, and digged a pit, as she had given directions, and
poured in his offering ; the blood of a ram, and the
blood of a black ewe, milk, and honey, and wine ; and
the dead came to his banquet : aged men, and women,
and youths, and children who died in infancy. But
none of them would he suffer to approach, and dip their
thin lips in the offering, till Tiresias was served, not
though his own mother was among the number, whom
now for the first time he knew to be dead, for he had
left her living when he went to Troy, and she had died
since his departure, and the tidings never reached him :
though it irked his soul to use constraint upon her, yet
in compliance with the injunction of great Circe, he
forced her to retire along with the other ghosts. Then
Tiresias, who bore a golden sceptre, came and lapped
of the offering, and immediately he knew Ulysses, and

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

began to prophecy : he denounced woe to Ulysses , woe ,
ze'oe, and many sufferings , through the anger of Neptune
for the putting out of the eye of the sea-god' s son. Yet
there was safety after suffering , if they could abstain from
slaughtering the oxen of the Sun after they landed in the
Triangular island. For Ulysses , the gods had destined
him from a king to become a beggar , and to perish by
his own guests , unless he slew those who knew him
not.

This prophecy, ambiguously delivered, was all that
Tiresias was empowered to unfold, or else there was no
longer place for him ; for now the souls of the other
dead came flocking in such numbers, tumultuously
demanding the blood, that freezing horror seized the
limbs of the living Ulysses, to see so many, and all
dead, and he the only one alive in that region. Now
his mother came and lapped the blood, without restraint
from her son, and now she knew him to be her son, and
inquired of him why he had come alive to their com¬
fortless habitations. And she said, that affliction for
Ulysses’ long absence had prayed upon her spirits, and
brought her to the grave.

Ulysses’ soul melted at her moving narration, and for¬
getting the state of the dead, and that the airy texture
of disembodied spirits does not admit of the embraces
of flesh and blood, he threw his arms about her to clasp
her : the poor ghost melted from his embrace, and look¬
ing mournfully upon him vanished away.

Then saw he other females — Tyro, who when she

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

lived was the paramour of Neptune, and by him had
Pelias and Neleus. Antiope, who bore two like sons to
Jove, Amphion and Zethus, founders of Thebes. Alc-
mena, the mother of Hercules, with her fair daughter,
afterwards her daughter-in-law, Megara. There also
Ulysses saw Jocasta, the unfortunate mother and wife
of CEdipus ; who ignorant of kin wedded with her son,
and when she bad discovered the unnatural alliance, for
shame and grief hanged herself. He continued to drag
a wretched life above the earth, haunted by the dreadful
Furies.- — There was Eeda, the wife of Tyndarus, the
mother of the beautiful Helen, and of the two brave
brothers, Castor and Pollux, who obtained this grace
from Jove, that being dead, they should enjoy life
alternately, living in pleasant places under the earth.
For Pollux had prayed that his brother Castor, who was
subjected to death, as the son of Tyndarus, should par¬
take of his own immortality, which he derived from an
immortal sire : this the Fates denied ; therefore Pollux
was permitted to divide his immortality with his
brother Castor, dying and living alternately. — There was
Ipliimedeia, who bore two sons to Neptune that were
giants, Otus and Ephialtes : Earth in her prodigality
never nourished bodies to such portentous size and
beauty as these two children were of, except Orion. At
nine years old they had imaginations of climbing to
heaven to see what the gods were doing ; they thought
to make stairs of mountains, and were for piling Ossa
upon Olympus, and setting Pelion upon that, and had

THE ADVENTURES OE ULYSSES.

perhaps performed it, if they had lived till they were

striplings ; but they were cut off by death in the infancy

of their ambitious project. — Phsedra was there, and
Procris, and Ariadne, mournful for Theseus’ desertion,
and Msera, and Clymene, and Eryphile, who preferred
gold before wedlock faith.

But now came a mournful ghost, that late was Aga¬
memnon, son of Atreus, the mighty leader of all the
host of Greece and their confederate kings that warred
against Troy. He came with the rest to sip a little of
the blood at that uncomfortable banqiiet. Ulysses was
moved with compassion to see him among them, and
asked him what untimely fate had brought him there,
if storms had overwhelmed him coming from Troy, or
if he had perished in some mutiny by his own soldiers
at a division of the prey.

“By none of these,” he replied, “did I come to my
death, but slain at a banquet to which I was invited by
iEgisthus after my return home. He conspiring with
my adulterous wife, they laid a scheme for my destruc¬
tion, training me forth to a banquet as au ox goes to the
slaughter, and there surrounding me they slew me with
all my friends about me.

“ Clytemnestra, my wicked wife, forgetting the vows
which she swore to me in wedlock, would not lend a
hand to close my eyes in death. But nothing is so
heaped with impieties as such a woman, who would kill
her spouse that married her a maid. When I brought
her home to my house a bride, I hoped in my heart that

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

slie would be loving to me and to my children. Now,
her black treacheries have cast a foul aspersioii on her
whole sex. Blest husbands will have their loving wives
in suspicion for her bad deeds.”

“Alas!” said Ulysses, “there seems to be a fatal¬
ity in your royal house of Atreus, and that they are
hated of Jove for their wives. For Helen’s sake, your
brother Menelaus’ wife, what multitudes fell in the wars
of Troy ! ’ ’

Agamemnon replied, “For this cause be not thou
more kind than wise to any woman. Uet not thy words
express to her at any time all that is in thy mind, keep
still some secrets to thyself. But thou by any bloody
contrivances of thy wife never need’st fear to fall. Ex¬
ceeding wise she is, and to her wisdom she has a good¬
ness as eminent : Icarius’ daughter, Penelope the
chaste : we left her a young bride when we parted from
our wives to go to the wars, her first child suckling at
her breast, the young Telemachus, whom you shall see
grown up to manhood on your return, and he shall
greet his father with befitting welcomes. My Orestes,
my dear son, I shall never see again. His mother has
deprived his father of the sight of him, and perhaps
will slay him as she slew his sire. It is now no world
to trust a woman in — But what says fame ? is my son
yet alive? lives he in Orchomen, or in Pylus, or is he
resident in Sparta, in his uncle’s court? as yet, I see,
divine Orestes is not here with me.”

To this Ulysses replied that he had received no certain

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

tidings where Orestes abode, only some uncertain
rumors which he could not report fox truth.

While they held this sad conference, with kind tears
striving to render unkind fortunes more palatable, the
soul of great Achilles joined them. “What desperate
adventure has brought Ulysses to these regions,” said
Achilles, “to see the end of dead men and their foolish
shades ? ”

Ulysses answered him that he had come to consult
Tiresias respecting his voyage home. “But thou, O
son of Thetis,” said he, “ why dost thou disparage the
state of the dead ? seeing that as alive thou didst sur¬
pass all men in glory, thou must needs retain thy pre¬
eminence here below : so great Achilles triumphs over
death.”

But Achilles made reply that he had much rather be
a peasant-slave upon the earth than reign over all the
dead. So much did the inactivity and slothful condition
of that state displease his unquenchable and restless
spirit. Only he inquired of Ulysses if his father Peleus
were living, and how his son Neoptolemus conducted
himself.

Of Peleus Ulysses could tell him nothing : but of
Neoptolemus he thus bore witness: “ From Scyros I
convoyed your son by sea to the Greeks, where I can
speak of him, for I knew him. He was chief in council
and in the field. When any question was proposed, so
quick was his conceit in the forward apprehension of any
case, that he ever spoke first, and was heard with more

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

attention than the older heads. Only myself and aged
Nestor could compare with him in giving advice. In
battle I cannot speak his praise, unless I could count all
that fell by his sword. I will only mention one instance
of his manhood. When we sat hid in the belly of the
wooden horse, in the ambush which deceived the Tro¬
jans to their destruction, I, who had the management
of that stratagem, still shifted my place from side to
side to note the behavior of our men. In some I
marked their hearts trembling, through all the pains
which they took to appear valiant, and in others tears,
that in spite of manly courage would gush forth. And
to say truth, it was an adventure of high enterprise, and
as perilous a stake as was ever played in war’s game.
But in him I could not observe the least sign of weak¬
ness, no tears nor tremblings, but his hand still on his
good sword, and ever urging me to set open the machine
and let us out before the time was come for doing it ;
and when we sallied out he was still first in that fierce
destruction and bloody midnight desolation of King
Priam’s city.”

This made the soul of Achilles to tread a swifter
pace, with high-raised feet, as he vanished away, for
the joy which he took in his son being applauded by
Ulysses.

A sad shade stalked by, which Ulysses knew to be the
ghost of Ajax, his opponent, when living, in that famous,
dispute about the right of succeeding to the arms of the
deceased Achilles. They being adjudged by the Greeks.

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

to Ulysses, as the prize of wisdom above bodily strength,
the noble Ajax in despite went mad, and slew himself.
The sight of his rival turned to a shade by his dispute,
so subdued the passion of emulation in Ulysses, that for
his sake he wished that judgment in that controversy
had been given against himself, rather than so illustrious
a chief should have perished for the desire of those arms,
which his prowess (second only to Achilles in fight) so
eminently had deserved. “Ajax,” he cried, “all the
Greeks mourn for thee as much as they lamented for
Achilles. Let not thy wrath burn forever, great son of
Telamon. Ulysses seeks peace with thee, and will make
any atonement to thee that can appease thy hurt spirit.”
But the shade stalked on, and would not exchange a
word with Ulysses, though he prayed it with many tears
and many earnest entreaties. “He might have spoke
to me,” said Ulysses, “since I spoke to him ; but I see
the resentments of the dead are eternal.”

Then Ulysses saw a throne, on which was placed a
judge distributing sentence. He that sat on the throne
was Minos, and he was dealing out just judgments to the
dead. He it is that assigns them their place in bliss or
woe.

Then came by a thundering ghost, the large-limbed
Orion, the mighty hunter, who was hunting there the
ghosts of the beasts which he had slaughtered in desert
hills upon the earth ; for the dead delight in the occupa¬
tions which pleased them in the time of their living upon
the earth.

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

There was Tityus suffering eternal pains because he
had sought to violate the honor of Latona as she passed
from Pytho into Panopeus. Two vultures sat perpetually
preying upon his liver with their crooked beaks, which
as fast as they devoured is forever renewed ; nor can he
fray them away with his great hands.

There was Tantalus, plagued for his great sins, stand¬
ing up to the chin in water, which he can never taste,
but still as he bows his head, thinking to quench his
burning thirst, instead of water lie licks up unsavory
dust. All fruits pleasant to the sight, and of delicious
flavor, hang in ripe clusters about his head, seeming as
though they offered themselves to be plucked by him ;
but when he reaches out his hand, some wind carries
them far out of his sight into the clouds, so he is
starved in the midst of plenty by the righteous doom of
Jove, in memory of that inhuman banquet at which the
sun turned pale, when the unnatural father served up
the limbs of his little son in a dish, as meat for his divine
guests.

There was Sisyphus, that sees no end to his labors.
His punishment is, to be forever rolling up a vast stone
to the top of a mountain, which when it gets to the top,
falls down with a crushing weight, and all his work is to
be begun again. He was bathed all over in sweat, that
reeked out a smoke which covered his head like a mist.
His crime had been the revealing of state secrets.

There Ulysses saw Hercules : not that Hercules who
enjoys immortal life in heaven among the gods, and is

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

married to Hebe or Youth, but his shadow which remains
below. About him the dead flocked as thick as bats,
hovering around, and cuffing at his head : he stands
with his dreadful bow, ever in the act to shoot.

There also might Ulysses have seen and spoken with
the shades of Theseus, and Pirithous, and the old heroes ;
but he had conversed enough with horrors ; therefore,
covering his face with his hands, that he might see no
more spectres, he resumed his seat in his ship, and
pushed off. The barque moved of itself without the help
of any oar, and soon brought him out of the regions of
death into the cheerful quarters of the living, and to the
island of -Dea, whence he had set forth.

Circe Warns Ulysses of the Sirens.

CHAPTER HI.

The song of the Sirens — Seylla and Charybdis — The oxen of the Sun
— The judgment — The crew killed by lightning

“Unhappy mail, who at thy birth wast appointed
twice to die ! others shall die once : but thou, besides
that death that remains for thee, common to all men,
hast in thy lifetime visited the shades of death. Thee
Seylla, thee Charybdis, expect. Thee the deathful
Sirens lie in wait for, that taint the minds of whoever
listen to them with their sweet singing. Whosoever
shall but hear the call of any Siren, he will so despise
both wife and children through their sorceries, that the
stream of his affection never again shall set homewards,
nor shall he take joy in wife or children thereafter, or
they in him.”

With these prophetic greetings great Circe met
Ulysses on his return. He besought her to instruct him
in the nature of the Sirens, and by what method their

baneful allurements were to be resisted.

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THE ADVENTURES OE ULYSSES.

“They are sisters three,” she replied, “that sit in a
mead (by which your ship must needs pass) circled with
dead men’s bones. These are the bones of men whom
they have slain, after with fawning invitements they
have enticed them into their fen. Yet such is the
celestial harmony of their voice accompanying the per¬
suasive magic of their words, that knowing this, you
shall not be able to withstand their enticements. There¬
fore when you are to sail by them, you shall stop the
ears of your companions with wax, that they may hear
no note of that dangerous music ; but for yourself, that
you may hear, and yet live, give them strict command
to bind you hand and foot to the mast, and in no case to
set you free, till you are out of the danger of the tempta¬
tion, though you should entreat it, and implore it
ever so much, but to bind you rather the more for
your requesting to be loosed. So shall you escape that
snare.”

Ulysses then prayed her that she would inform him
what Scvlla and Charybdis were, which she had taught
him by name to fear. She replied : “Sailing from iEea
to Trinacria, you must pass at an equal distance between
two fatal rocks. Incline never so little either to the one
side or the other, and your ship must meet with certain
destruction. No vessel ever yet tried that pass without
being lost, but the Argo, which owed her safety to the
sacred freight she bore, the fleece of the golden-backed
ram, which could not perish. The biggest of these

rocks which you shall come to, Scylla hath in charge.

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

There, ill a deep whirlpool at the foot of the rock, the
abhorred monster shrouds her face ; who if she were to
show her full form, no eye of man or god could endure
the sight ; thence she stretches out all her six long
necks peering and diving to suck up fish, dolphins, dog¬
fish, and whales, whole ships, and their men, whatever
comes within her raging gulf. The other rock is lesser,
and of less ominous aspect ; but there dreadful
Charybdis sits, supping the black deeps. Thrice a day
she drinks her pits dry, and thrice a day again she
belches them all up : but when she is drinking, come
not nigh, for being once caught, the force of Neptune
cannot redeem you from her swallow. Better trust to
Scylla, for she will but have for her six necks, six men :
Charybdis in her insatiate draught will ask all.”

Then Ulysses inquired, in case he should escape
Charybdis, whether he might not assail that other mon¬
ster with his sword : to which she replied that he must
not think that he had an enemy subject to death, or
wounds, to contend with : for Scylla could never die.
Therefore, his best safety was in flight, and to invoke
none of the gods but Gratis, who is Scylla’ s mother, and
might perhaps forbid her daughter to devour them. For
his conduct after he arrived at Trinacria she referred
him to the admonitions which had been given him by
Tiresias.

Ulysses having communicated her instructions, as far
as related to the Sirens, to his companions, who had not
been present at that interview ; but concealing from

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES. 63

them the rest, as he had done the terrible predictions of
Tiresias, that they might not be deterred by fear from
pursuing their voyage : the time for departure being
come, they set their sails, and took a final leave of
great Circe ; who by her art calmed the heavens, and
gave them smooth seas, and a right fore wind (the sea¬
man’s friend) to bear them on their way to Ithaca.

They had not sailed past a hundred leagues before the
breeze which Circe had lent them suddenly stopped. It
was stricken dead. All the sea lay in prostrate slumber.
Not a gasp of air could be felt. The ship stood still.
Ulysses guessed that the island of the Sirens was not far
off, and that they had charmed the air so with their
devilish singing. Therefore he made him cakes of wax,
as Circe had instructed him, and stopped the ears of his
men with them : then causing himself to be bound hand
and foot, he commanded the rowers to ply their oars and
row as fast as speed could carry them past that fatal
shore. They soon came within sight of the Sirens, who
sang in Ulysses’ hearing :

Come here, thou, worthy of a world of praise,

That dost so high the Grecian glory raise ;

Ulysses ! stay thy ship ; and that song hear
That none pass’d ever, but it bent his ear,

But left him ravish’d, and instructed more
By us, than any, ever heard before.

For we know all things, whatsoever were
In wide Troy labor’d : whatsoever there
The Grecians and the Trojans both sustain’d :

By those high issues that the gods ordain’d :

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

Aud whatsoever all the earth can show
To inform a knowledge of desert, we know.

These were the words, but the celestial harmony of
the voices which sang them no tongue can describe : it
took the ear of Ulysses with ravishment. He would
have broke his bonds to rush after them ; and threatened,
wept, sued, entreated, commanded, crying out with
tears and passionate imprecations, conjuring his men by
all the ties of perils past which they had endured in
common, by fellowship and love, and the authority
which he retained among them, to let him loose ; but at
no rate would they obey him. And still the Sirens
sang. Ulysses made signs, motions, gestirres, promising
mountains of gold if they would set him free ; but their
oars only moved faster. And still the Sirens sang.
And still the more he adjured them to set him free,
the faster with cords and ropes they bound him ; till they
were quite out of hearing of the Sirens’ notes, whose
effect great Circe had so truly predicted. And well she
might speak of them, for often she had joined her own
enchanting voice to theirs, while she has sat in the
flowery meads, mingled with the Sirens and the Water
Nymphs, gathering their potent herbs and drugs of
magic quality : their singing altogether has made
the gods stoop, aud “heaven drowsy with the har¬
mony. ’ ’

Escaped that peril, they had not sailed yet an hundred
leagues farther, when they heard a roar afar off, which

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

Ulysses knew to be the barking of Scylla’ s dogs, which
surround her waist, and bark incessantly. Coming
nearer they beheld a smoke ascending, with a horrid
murmur, which arose from that other whirlpool, to
which they made nigher approaches than to Scylla.
Through the furious eddy, which is in that place, the
ship stood still as a stone, for there was no man to lend
his hand to an oar, the dismal roar of Scylla’ s dogs at a
distance, and the nearer clamors of Charybdis, where
everything made an echo, quite taking from them the
power of exertion. Ulysses went up and down en¬
couraging his men, one by one, giving them good words,
telling them that they were in greater perils when they
were blocked up in the Cyclop’s cave, yet, heaven
assisting his counsels, he had delivered them out of that
extremity. That he could not believe but they remem¬
bered it ; and wished them to give the same trust to the
same care which he had now for their welfare. That

they must exert all the strength and wit which they had,.

and try if Jove would not grant them an escape even out
of this peril. In particular he cheered up the pilot who
sat at the helm, and told him that he must show more
firmness than other men, as he had more trust committed
to him, and had the sole management by his skill of the
vessel in which all their safeties were embarked. That
a rock lay hid within those boiling whirlpools which he
saw, on the outside of which he must steer, if he would
avoid his own destruction, and the destruction of them
all.

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

They heard him, and like men took to the oars ; but
little knew what opposite danger, in shunning that rock,
they must be thrown upon. For Ulysses had concealed
from them the wounds, never to be healed, which Scylla
was to open : their terror would else have robbed them
all of all care to steer, or move an oar, and have made
them hide under the hatches for fear of seeing her, where
he and they must have died an idle death. But even
then he forgot the precautions which Circe had given
him to prevent harm to his person ; who had willed him
not to arm, or show himself once to Scylla : but dis¬
daining not to venture life for his brave companions, he
could not contain, but armed in all points, and taking a
lance in either hand, he went up to the fore deck, and
looked when Scylla would appear.

She did not show herself as yet, and still the vessel
steered closer by her rock, as it sought to shun that other
more dreaded : for they saw how horribly Charybdis’
black throat drew into her all the whirling deep, which
she disgorged again, that all about her boiled like a
kettle, and the rock roared with troubled waters ; which
when she supped in again, all the bottom turned up,
and disclosed far under shore the swart sands naked,
whose whole stern sight frayed the startled blood from
their faces, and made Ulysses turn his to view the wonder
of whirlpools. Which when Scylla saw, from out her
black den, she darted out her six long necks, and swoopt
up as many of his friends : whose cries Ulysses heard,
and saw them too late, with their heels turned up, and

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

their hands thrown to him for succor, who had been
their help in all extremities, bat could not deliver them
now ; and he heard them shriek out, as she tore them,
and to the last they continued to throw their hands out
to him for sweet life. In all his sufferings he never had
beheld a sight so full of miseries.

Escaped from Scylla and Charybdis, but with a
diminished crew, Ulysses and the sad remains of his
followers reached the Trinacrian shore. Here landing,
he beheld oxen grazing of such surpassing size and
beauty, that both from them, and from the shape of the
island (having three promontories jutting into the sea)
he judged rightly that he was come to the Triangular
island, and the oxen of the Sun, of which Tiresias had
forewarned him.

So great was his terror lest through his own fault, or
that of his men, any violence or profanation should be
offered to the holy oxen, that even then, tired as they
were with the perils and fatigues of the day past, and
unable to stir an oar, or use any exertion, and though
night was fast coming on, he would have them re-embark
immediately, and make the best of their way from that
dangerous station ; but his men with one voice resolutely
opposed it, and even the too cautious Eurylochus him¬
self withstood the proposal : so much did the temptation
of a little ease and refreshment (ease tenfold sweet after
such labors) prevail over the sagest counsels, and the
apprehension of certain evil outweigh the prospect of
contingent danger. They expostulated, that the nerves

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

of Ulysses seemed to be made of steel, and his limbs not
liable to lassitude like other men’s ; that waking or
sleeping seemed indifferent to him ; but that they were
men, not gods, and felt the common appetites for food
and sleep. That in the night-time all the winds most
destructive to ships are generated. That black night
still required to be served with meat, and sleep, and
quiet havens and ease. That the best sacrifice to the
sea was in the morning. With such sailor-like sayings
and mutinous arguments, which the majority have
always ready to justify disobedience to their betters, they
forced Ulysses to comply with their requisition, and
against his will to take up his night-quarters on shore.
But he first exacted from them an oath that they would
neither maim nor kill any of the cattle which they saw
grazing, but content themselves with such food as Circe
had stowed their vessel with when they parted from
^Eea. This they man by man severally promised,
imprecating the heaviest curses on whoever should
break it ; and mooring their bark within a creek, they
went to supper, contenting themselves that night with
such food as Circe had given them, not without many
sad thoughts of their friends whom Scylla had devoured,
the grief of which kept them great part of the night
waking.

In the morning Ulysses urged them again to a relig¬
ious observance of the oath that they had sworn, not in
any case to attempt the blood of those fair herds which
they saw grazing, but to content themselves with the

THE ADVENTURES OE ULYSSES.

ship’s food ; for the god who owned those cattle sees and
hears all.

They faithfully obeyed, and remained in that good
mind for a month, during which they were confined to
that station by contrary winds, till all the wine and the
bread were gone, which they had brought with them.
When their victuals were gone, necessity compelled
them to stray in quest of whatever fish or fowl they
could ensnare, which that coast did not yield in any
great abundance. Then Ulysses prayed to all the gods
that dwelt in bountiful heaven, that they would be
pleased to yield them some means to stay their hunger
without having recourse to profane and forbidden viola¬
tions : but the ears of heaven seemed to be shut, or some
god incensed plotted his ruin ; for at mid-day, when he
should chiefly have been vigilant and watchful to pre¬
vent mischief, a deep sleep fell upon the eyes of Ulysses,
during which he lay totally insensible of all that passed
in the world, and what his friends or what his enemies
might do, for his welfare or destruction. Then Eury-
lochus took his advantage. He was the man of most
authority with them after Ulysses. He represented to
them all the misery of their condition ; how that every
death is hateful and grievous to mortality, but that of
all deaths famine is attended with the most painful,
loathsome, and humiliating circumstances ; that the
subsistence which they could hope to draw from fowling
or fishing was too precarious to be depended upon ; that
there did not seem to be any chance of the winds chang-

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

ing to favor their escape, but that they must inevitably
stay there and perish, if they let an irrational super¬
stition deter them from the means which nature offered
to their hands ; that Ulysses might be deceived in his
belief that these oxen had any sacred qualities above
other oxen ; and even admitting that they were the
property of the god of the Sun, as he said they were, the
Sun did neither eat nor drink, and the gods were best
served not by a scrupulous conscience, but by a thank¬
ful heart, which took freely what they as freely offered :
with these and such-like persuasions he prevailed on his
half-famished and half-mutinous companions, to begin
the impious violation of their oath by the slaughter of
seven of the fairest of these oxen which were grazing.
Part they roasted and eat, and part they offered in
sacrifice to the gods, particularly to Apollo, god of the
Sun, vowing to build a temple to his godhead, when
they should arrive in Ithaca, and deck it with magnifi¬
cent and numerous gifts : Vain men ! and superstition
worse than that which they so lately derided ! to
imagine that prospective penitence can excuse a present
violation of duty, and that the pure natures of the
heavenly powers will admit of compromise or dispensa¬
tion for sin.

But to their feast they fell, dividing the roasted por¬
tions of the flesh, savory and pleasant meat to them, but
a sad sight to the eyes and a savor of death in the
nostrils of the waking Ulysses ; who just woke in time
to witness, but not soon enough to prevent, their rash

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The Followers of Ulysses Slay the Oxen of Apollo.

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

and sacrilegious banquet. He had scarce time to ask
what great mischief was this which they had done unto
him ; when behold, a prodigy ! the ox-hides which they
had stripped began to creep, as if they had life ; and the
roasted flesh bellowed as the ox used to do when he was
living. The hair of Ulysses stood up on end with affright
at these omens ; but his companions, like men whom the
gods had infatuated to their destruction, persisted in
their horrible banquet.

The Sun from its burning chariot saw how Ulysses’
men had slain his oxen, and he cried to his father Jove :
‘ ‘ Revenge me upon these impious men who have slain
my oxen, which it did me good to look upon when I
walked my heavenly round. In all my daily course I
never saw such bright and beautiful creatures as those
my oxen were.” The father promised that ample retri¬
bution should be taken of those accursed men : which
was fulfilled shortly after, when they took their leaves
of the fatal island.

Six days they feasted in spite of the signs of heaven,
and on the seventh, the wind changing, they set their
sails and left the island ; and their hearts were cheerful
with the banquets they had held ; all but the heart of
Ulysses, which sank within him, as with wet eyes he
beheld his friends, and gave them for lost, as men de¬
voted to divine vengeance. Which soon overtook them :
for they had not gone many leagues before a dreadful
tempest arose, which burst their cables ; down came
their mast, crushing the skull of the pilot in its fall ; off

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

lie fell from the stern into the water, and the bark want¬
ing his management drove along at the wind’s mercy :
thunders roared, and terrible lightnings of Jove came
down ; first a bolt struck Eurylochus, then another, and
then another, till all the crew were killed, and their
bodies swam about like sea-mews ; and the ship was
split in pieces : only Ulysses survived ; and he had no
hope of safety but in tying himself to the mast, where
he sat riding upon the waves, like one that in no ex¬
tremity would yield to fortune. Nine days was he float¬
ing about with all the motions of the sea, with no other
support than the slender mast under him, till the tenth
night cast him, all spent and weary with toil, upon the
friendly shores of the island Ogygia.

On the Island of Calypso.

CHAPTER IV.

The island of Calypso — Immortality refused.

Henceforth the adventures of the single Ulysses
must be pursued. Of all those faithful partakers of his
toil, who with him left Asia, laden with the spoils of
Troy, now not one remains, but all a prey to the remorse¬
less waves, and food for some great fish ; their gallant
navy reduced to one ship, and that finally swallowed up
and lost. Where now are all their anxious thoughts of
home? that perseverance with which they went through
the severest sufferings and the hardest labors to which
poor seafarers were ever exposed, that their toils at last
might be crowned with the sight of their native shores
and wives at Ithaca ! — Ulysses is now in the isle Ogygia ;
called the Delightful Island. The poor shipwrecked
chief, the slave of all the elements, is once again raised
by the caprice of fortune into a shadow of prosperity.
He that was cast naked upon the shore, bereft of all his

companions, has now a goddess to attend upon him, and
6 (77)

THE ADVENTURES OF UEYSSES.

his companions are the nymphs which never die. — Who-
has not heard of Calypso ? her grove crowned with alders
and poplars ? her grotto, against which the luxuriant
vine laid forth his purple grapes ? her ever new delights,
crystal fountains, running brooks, meadows flowering
with sweet balm-gentle and with violet : blue violets
which like veins enamelled the smooth breasts of each
fragrant mead ! It were useless to describe over again
what has been so well told already : or to relate those
soft arts of courtship which the goddess used to detain
Ulysses ; the same in kind which she afterwards practised
upon his less wary son, whom Minerva, in the shape of
Mentor, hardly preserved from her snares, when they
came to the Delightful Island together in search of the
scarce departed Ulysses.

A memorable example of married love, and a worthy
instance how dear to every good man his country is,
was exhibited by Ulysses. If Circe loved him sincerely,
Calypso loves him with tenfold more warmth and passion :
she can deny him nothing but his departure ; she offers
him everything, even to a participation of her immor¬
tality ; if he will stay and share in her pleasures he shall
never die. But death with glory has greater charms for
a mind heroic than a life that shall never die with
shame ; and when he pledged his vows to his Penelope,
he reserved no stipulation that he would forsake her
whenever a goddess should think him worthy of her
bed, but they had sworn to live and grow old together :
and he would not survive her if he could, nor meanly

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

share in immortality itself, from which she was ex¬
cluded.

These thoughts kept him pensive and melancholy in
the midst of pleasure. His heart was on the seas,
making voyages to Ithaca. Twelve months had worn
away, when Minerva from heaven saw her favorite, how
he sat still pining on the sea shores (his daily custom),
wishing for a ship to carry him home. She (who is
wisdom herself) was indignant that so wise and brave a
man as Ulysses should be held in effeminate bondage by
an unworthy goddess : and at her request, her father
Jove ordered Mercury to go down to the earth to com¬
mand Calypso to dismiss her guest. The divine mes¬
senger tied fast to his feet his winged shoes, which bear
him over land and seas, and took in his hand his golden
rod, the ensign of his authority. Then wheeling in
many an airy round, he stayed not till he alighted on
the firm top of the mountain Pieria : thence he fetched
a second circuit over the seas, kissing the waves in his
flight with his feet, as light as any sea-mew fishing dips
her wings, till he touched the isle Ogygia, and soared
up from the blue sea to the grotto of the goddess, to
whom his errand was ordained.

His message struck a horror, checked by love, through
all the faculties of Calypso. She replied to it, incensed :
“ You gods are insatiate, past all that live, in all things
which you affect ; which makes you so envious and
grudging. It afflicts you to the heart, when any god¬
dess seeks the love of a mortal man in marriage, though

SO THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

you yourselves without scruple link yourselves to women
of the earth. So it fared with you, when the delicious-
fingered Morning shared Orion’s bed ; you could never
satisfy your hate and your jealousy till you had incensed
the chastity-loving dame, Diana, who leads the precise
life , to come upon him by stealth in Ortygia, and pierce
him through with her arrows. And when rich-haired
Ceres gave the reins to her affections, and took Iasion
(well worthy) to her arms, the secret was not so cun¬
ningly kept but Jove had soon notice of it, and the poor
mortal paid for his felicity with death, struck through
with lightnings. And now you envy me the possession
of a wretched nian, whom tempests have cast upon my
shores, making him lawfully mine; whose ship Jove
rent in pieces with his hot thunderbolts, killing all his
friends. Him I have preserved, loved, nourished, made
him mine by protection, my creature, by every tie of
gratitude mine ; have vowed to make him deathless
like myself ; him you will take from me. But I know
your power, and that it is vain for me to resist. Tell
your king that I obey his mandates.”

With an ill grace Calypso promised to fulfil the com¬
mands of Jove ; and, Mercury departing, she went to
find Ulysses, where he sat outside the grotto, not know¬
ing of the heavenly message, drowned in discontent,
not seeing any human probability of his ever return¬
ing home.

She said to him: “Unhappy man, no longer afflict
yourself with pining after your country, but build you

Calypso.

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THE ADVENTURES OF UEYSSES.

a ship, with which you may return home ; since it is
the will of the gods : who, doubtless, as they are greater
in power than I, are greater in skill, and best can tell
what is fittest for man. But I call the gods and my
inward conscience to witness, that I had no thought
but what stood with thy safety, nor would have done or
counselled anything against thy good. I persuaded
thee to nothing which I should not have followed my¬
self in thy extremity : for my mind is innocent and
simple. O, if thou knewest what dreadful sufferings
thou must yet endure before ever thou readiest thy
native land, thou wouldest not esteem so hardly of a
goddess’ offer to share her immortality with thee ; nor,
for a few years’ enjoyment of a perishing Penelope,
refuse an imperishable and never-dying life with Ca¬
lypso. ’ ’

He replied: “Ever-honored, great Calypso, let it
not displease thee, that I, a mortal man, desire to see
and converse again with a wife that is mortal ; human
objects are best fitted to human infirmities. I well
know how far in wisdom, in feature, in stature, propor¬
tion, beauty, in all the gifts of the mind, thou exceedest
my Penelope : she a mortal, and subject to decay ; thou
immortal, ever growing, yet never old ; yet in her sight
all my desires terminate, all my wishes ; in the sight
of her, and of my country earth. If any god, envious
of my return, shall lay his dreadful hand upon me as I
pass the seas, I submit ; for the same powers have given

the; adventures of ulysses.

me a mind not to sink under oppression. In wars and
waves my sufferings have not been small.”

She heard his pleaded reasons, and of force she must
assent ; so to her nymphs she gave in charge from her
sacred woods to cut down timber, to make Ulysses a
ship. They obeyed, though in a work unsuitable to
their soft fingers, yet to obedience no sacrifice is hard :
and Ulysses busily bestirred himself, laboring far more
hard than they, as was fitting, till twenty tall trees,
driest and fittest for timber, were felled. Then like a
skilful shipwright he fell to joining the planks, using
the plane, the axe, and the auger, with such expedition,
that in four days’ time a ship was made, complete with
all her decks, hatches, side-boards, yards. Calypso-
added linen for the sails, and tackling ; and when she
was finished, she was a goodly vessel for a man to sail
in alone, or in company, over the wide seas. By the
fifth morning she was launched ; and Ulysses, furnished
with store of provisions, rich garments, and gold and
silver, given him by Calypso, took a last leave of her,
and of her nymphs, and of the isle Ogygia which had
so befriended him.

Ulysses Departs from Calypso and Embarks for Ithaca.

CHAPTER V.

The tempest— The sea-bird’s gift — The escape by swimming — The

sleep in the woods.

At the stern of his solitary ship Ulysses sat and
steered right artfully. No sleep could seize his eyelids.
He beheld the Pleiads, the Bear which is by some called
the Wain, that moves round abont Orion, and keeps
still above the ocean, and the slow-setting sign Bootes,
which some name the Waggoner. Seventeen days he
held his course, and on the eighteenth the coast of
Phseacia was in sight. The figure of the land, as seen
from the sea, was pretty and circular, and looked some¬
thing like a shield.

Neptune returning from visiting his favorite Ethi¬
opians, from the mountains of the Solymi, descried
Ulysses ploughing the waves, his domain. The sight
of the man he so much hated for Polyphemus’ sake, his
son, whose eye Ulysses had put out, set the god’s heart
on fire, and snatching into his hand his horrid sea-

sceptre, the trident of his power, he smote the air and

(85)

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

the sea, and conjured up all his black storms, calling
down night from the cope of heaven and taking the
earth into the sea, as it seemed, with clouds, through
the darkness and indistinctness which prevailed, the
billows rolling up before the fury of all the winds that
contended together in their mighty sport.

Then the knees of Ulysses bent with fear, and then
all his spirit was spent, and he wished that he had been
among the number of his countrymen who fell before
Troy, and had their funerals celebrated by all the
Greeks, rather than to perish thus, where no man could
mourn him or know him.

As he thought these melancholy thoughts, a huge
wave took him and washed him overboard, ship and all
upset amidst the billows, he struggling afar off, clinging
to her stern broken off which he yet held, her mast
cracking in two with the fury of that gust of mixed
winds that struck it, sails and sail-yards fell into the
deep, and he himself was long drowned under water,
nor could get his head above, wave so met with wave,
as if they strove which should depress him most, and
the gorgeous garments given him by Calypso clung
about him, and hindered his swimming ; yet neither for
this, nor for the overthrow of his ship, nor his own
perilous condition, would he give up his drenched ves¬
sel, but, wrestling with Neptune, got at length hold of
her again, and then sat in her bulk, insulting over
death, which he had escaped, and the salt waves which
he gave the sea again to give to other men : his ship,

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES. 87

striving to live, floated at random, cuffed from wave to
wave, hurled to and fro by all the wind? ; now Boreas
tossed it to Notus, Notus passed it to Burns, and Bums
to the west wind, who kept up the horrid tennis.

Them in their mad sport Iuo Beucothea beheld ; Ino
Beueothea, now a sea-goddess, but once a mortal and
the daughter of Cadmus ; she with pity beheld Ulysses
the mark of their fierce contention, and rising from the
waves alighted on the ship, in shape like to the sea-bird
which is called a cormorant, and in her beak she held
a wonderful girdle made of sea-weeds which grow at the
bottom of the ocean, which she dropped at his feet, and
the bird spake to Ulysses and counselled him not to
trust any more to that fatal vessel against which god
Neptune had levelled his furious wrath, nor to those
ill-befriending garments which Calypso had given him,
but to quit both it and them, and trust for his safety to
swimming. “And here,” said the seeming bird, “take
this girdle and tie about your middle, which has virtue
to protect the wearer at sea, and you shall safely reach
the shore ; but when you have landed cast it far from
you back into the sea.” He did as the sea-bird in¬
structed him, he stripped himself naked, and fastening
the wondrous girdle about his middle, cast himself
into the seas to swim. The bird dived past his sight
into the fathomless abyss of the ocean.

Two days and two nights he spent in struggling
with the waves, though sore buffeted and almost spent,
never giving up himself for lost, such confidence he

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

had in that charm which he wore about his middle,,
and in the words of that divine bird. But the third
morning the winds grew calm, and all' the heavens
were clear. Then he saw himself nigh land, which
he knew to be the coast of the Phaeacians, a people
good to strangers, and abounding in ships, by whose
favor he doubted not that he should soon obtain a
passage to his own country. And such joy he con¬
ceived in his heart, as good sons have that esteem their
father’s life dear, when long sickness has held him
down to his bed, and wasted his body, and they see
at length health return to the old man, with restored
strength and spirits, in reward of their many prayers
to the gods for his safety : so precious was the pros¬
pect of home-return to Ulysses, that he might restore
health to his country (his better parent), that had long
languished as full of distempers in his absence. And
then for his own safety’s sake he had joy to see the
shores, the woods, so nigh and within his grasp as
they seemed, and he labored with all the might of
hands and feet to reach with swimming that nigh-
seeming land.

But when he approached nearer, a horrid sound of a
huge sea beating against rocks informed him that here
was no place for landing, nor any harbor for man’s
resort, but through the weeds and the foam which the
sea belched up against the land he could dimly discover
the rugged shore all bristled with flints, and all that part
of the coast one impending rock that seemed impossible

Ueucothea Rescues Ulysses.

(89)

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

to climb, and the water all about so deep, that not a
sand was there for any tired foot to rest upon, and every
moment he feared lest some wave more cruel than the
rest should crush him against a cliff, rendering worse
than vain all his landing : and should he swim to seek a
more commodious haven farther on, he was fearful lest,
weak and spent as he was, the winds would force him
back a long way off into the main, where the terrible god
Neptune, for wrath that he had so nearly escaped his
power, having gotten him again into his domain, would
send out some great whale (of which those seas breed a
horrid number) to swallow him up alive ; with such
malignity he still pursued him.

While these thoughts distracted him with diversitv of
dangers, one bigger wave drove against a sharp rock his
naked body, which it gashed and tore, and wanted little
of breaking- all his bones, so rude was the shock. But
in this extremity she prompted him that never failed
him at need. Minerva (who is wisdom itself) put it
into his thoughts no longer to keep swimming off and
on, as one dallying with danger, but boldly to force the
shore that threatened him, and to hug the rock that had
torn him so rudely ; which with both hands he clasped,
wrestling with extremity, till the rage of that billow
which had driven him upon it was past ; but then again
the rock drove back that wave so furiously, that it reft
him of his hold, sucking him with it in his return, and
the sharp rock (his cruel friend) to which he dinged for
succor, rent the flesh so sore from his hands in parting,

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

that he fell off, and could sustain no longer : quite
under water he fell, and past the help of fate, there had
the hapless Ulysses lost all portion that he had in
this life, if Minerva had not prompted his wisdom in
that peril to essay another course, and to explore some
other shelter, ceasing to attempt that landing-place.

She guided his wearied and nigh-exhausted limbs to
the mouth of the fair river Calliro, which not far from
thence disbursed its watery tribute to the ocean. Here
the shores were easy and accessible, and the rocks, which
rather adorned than defended its banks, so smooth, that
they seemed polished of purpose to invite the landing of
our sea- wanderer, and to atone for the uncourteous treat¬
ment which those less hospitable cliffs had afforded him.
And the god of the river, as if in pity, stayed his cur¬
rent and smoothed his waters, to make his landing more
easy ; for sacred to the ever-living deities of the fresh
waters, be they mountain-stream, river or lake, is the
cry of erring mortals that seek their aid, by reason that
being inland-bred they partake more of the gentle
humanities of our nature than those marine deities,
whom Neptune trains up in tempests in the unpitying
recesses of his salt abyss.

So by the favor of the river’s god Ulysses crept to
land half-drowned ; both his knees faltering, his strong
hands falling down through weakness from the excessive
toils he had endured, his cheek and nostrils flowing with
froth of the sea-brine, much of which he had swallowed
in that conflict, voice and breath spent, down he sank as

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

9:?

in death. Dead weary he was. It seemed that the sea
had soaked through his heart, and the pains he felt in
all his veins were little less than those which one feels
that has endured the torture of the rack. But when his
spirits came a little to themselves, and his recollection
by degrees began to return, he rose up, and unloosing
from his waist the girdle or charm which that divine
bird had given him, and remembering the charge which
he had received with it, he flung it far from him into the
river. Back it swam with the course of the ebbing
stream till it reached the sea, where the fair hands of
Ino Deucothea received it to keep it as a pledge of safety
to any future shipwrecked mariner that like Ulysses
should wander in those perilous waves.

Then he kissed the humble earth in token of safety,

and on he went by the side of that pleasant river till he

came where a thicker shade of rushes that grew on its

banks seemed to point out the place where he might

rest his sea-wearied limbs. And here a fresh perplexity

divided his mind, whether he should pass the night,

which was coming on, in that place, where, though he

feared no other enemies, the damps and frosts of the

chill sea-air in that exposed situation might be death to

him in his weak state ; or whether he had better climb

the next hill, and pierce the depth of some shady wood,

in which he might find a warm and sheltered though

insecure repose, subject to the approach of any wild

beast that roamed that way. Best did this last course

appear to him, though with some danger, as that which
7

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

was more honorable and savored more of strife and self¬
exertion, than to perish without a struggle the passive
victim of cold and the elements.

So he bent his course to the nearest woods, where,
entering in, he found a thicket, mostly of wild olives
and such low trees, yet growing so intertwined and knit
together that the moist wind had not leave to play
through their branches, nor the sun’s scorching beams
to pierce their recesses, nor any shower to beat through,
they grew so thick and as it were folded each in the
other ; here creeping in he made his bed of the leaves
which were beginning to fall, of which was such
abundance that two or three men might have spread
them ample coverings, such as might shield them from
the winter’s rage, though the air breathed steel and
blew as it would burst. Here creeping in, he heaped
up store of leaves all about him, as a man would billets
upon a winter fire, and lay down in the midst. Rich
seed of virtue lying hid in poor leaves ! Here Minerva
soon gave him sound sleep ; and here all his long toils
past seemed to be concluded and shut up within the
little sphere of his refreshed and closed eyelids.

The Princess Nausicaa and Ulysses.

CHAPTER VI.

The Princess Nausicaa — The washing — The game with the ball —
The Court of Phasacia and king Alcinous.

Meantime Minerva, designing an interview between
the king’s daughter of that country and Ulysses when
he should awake, went by night to the palace of king
Alcinous, and stood at the bedside of the princess
Nausicaa in the shape of one of her favorite attendants,
and thus addressed the sleeping princess.

“ Nausicaa, why do you lie sleeping here, and never
bestow a thought upon your bridal ornaments, of which
you have many and beautiful, laid up in your wrardrobe
against the day of your marriage, which cannot be far
distant ; when you shall have need of all, not only to
deck your own person, but to give away in presents
to the virgins that honoring you shall attend you to
the temple ? Your reputation stands much upon the
timely care of these things ; these things are they
which fill father and reverend mother with del ight.

Let us arise betimes to wash your fair vestments of

(95)

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

linen and silks in the river ; and request your sire to
lend you mules and a coach, for your wardrobe is
heavy, and the place where we must wash is distant,
and besides it fits not a great princess like yon to go
so far on foot. ’ ’

So saying she went away, and Nausicaa awoke, full
of pleasing thoughts of her marriage, which the dream
had told her was not far distant : and as soon as it was
dawn, she arose and dressed herself and went to find her
parents .

The queen her mother was already up, and seated
among her maids, spinning at her wheel, as the fashion
was in those primitive times, when great ladies did not
disdain housewifery ; and the king her father was pre¬
paring to go abroad at that early hour to council with
his grave senate.

“My father,” she said, “will you not order mules and
a coach to be got ready, that I may go and wash, I and
my maids, at the cisterns that stand without the city?”

“What washing does my daughter speak of?” said
Alcinous.

“Mine and my brothers’ garments,” she replied,
“that have contracted soil by this time with lying by
so long in the wardrobe. Five sons have you, that are
my brothers ; two of them are married, and three are
bachelors ; these last it concerns to have their garments
neat and unsoiled ; it may advance their fortunes in
marriage : and who but I their sister should have a
care of these things ? You yourself, my father, have

THE ADVENTURES OF URYSSES.

need of the whitest apparel, when you go, as now, to
the council.”

She used this plea, modestly dissembling her care of
her own nuptials to her father ; who was not displeased
at this instance of his daughter’s discretion : for a sea¬
sonable care about marriage may be permitted to a
young maiden, provided it to be accompanied with
modesty and dutiful submission to her parents in the
choice of her future husband : and there was no fear of
Nausicaa choosing wrongly or improperly, for she was
as wise as she was beautiful, and the best in all Phseacia
were suitors to her for her love. So Alcinous readily
gave consent that she should go, ordering mules and a
coach to be prepared. And Nausicaa brought from her
chamber all her vestments, and laid them up in the
coach, and her mother placed bread and wine in the
coach, and oil in a golden cruse, to soften the bright
skins of Nausicaa and her maids when they came out
of the river.

Nausicaa making her maids get up into the coach
with her, lashed the mules, till they brought her to
the cisterns which stood a little on the outside of the
town, and were supplied with water from the river
Cal li roe.

There her attendants unyoked the mules, took out
the clothes, and steeped them in the cisterns, washing
them in several waters, and afterwards treading them
clean with their feet, venturing wagers who should have
done soonest and cleanest, and using many pretty pas-

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

times to beguile their labor as young maids use, while
the princess looked on. When they had laid their
clothes to dry, they fell to playing again, and Nausicaa
joined them in a game with the ball, which is used
in that country, which is performed by tossing the
ball from hand to hand with great expedition, she who
begins the pastime singing a song. It chanced that
the princess, whose turn it became to toss the ball,
sent it so far from its mark, that it fell beyond into one
of the cisterns of the river : at which the whole com¬
pany, in merry consternation, set up a shriek so loud
as waked the sleeping Ulysses, who was taking his rest,
after his long toils, in the woods not far distant from
the place where these young maids had come to wash.

At the sound of female voices Ulysses crept forth
from his retirement, making himself a covering with
boughs and leaves as well as he could to shroud his
nakedness. The sudden appearance of his weather¬
beaten and almost naked form so frightened the maidens
that they scudded away into the woods and all about to
hide themselves, only Minerva (who had brought about
this interview to admirable purposes, by seemingly acci¬
dental means) put courage into the breast of Nansicaa,
and she stayed where she was, and resolved to know
what manner of man he was, and what was the occasion
of his strange coming to them.

He not venturing (for delicacy) to approach and clasp
her knees, as suppliants should, but standing far off,
addressed this speech to the young princess.

(99)

The Princess Nausicaa and Ulysses.

THE ADVENTURES OF UEYSSES.

101

“Before I presume rudely to press my petitions, I
should first ask whether I am addressing a mortal woman,

or one of the goddesses. If a goddess, you seem to me
to be likest to Diana, the chaste huntress, the daughter
of Jove. Like hers are your lineaments, your stature,
your features, and air divine.”

She making answer that she was no goddess, but a
mortal maid, he continued :

“ If a woman, thrice blessed are both the authors of
your birth, thrice blessed are your brothers, who even to
rapture must have joy in your perfections, . to see you
grow so like a young tree, and so graceful. But most
blessed of all that breathe is he that has the gift to
engage your young neck in the yoke of marriage. I
never saw that man that was worthy of you. I never
saw man or woman that at all parts equalled you.
Lately at Delos (where I touched) I saw a young
palm which grew beside Apollo’s temple ; it exceeded
all the trees which ever I beheld for straightness and
beauty : I can compare you only to that. A stupor
past admiration strikes me, joined with fear, which
keeps me back from approaching you, to embrace your
knees. Nor is it strange ; for one of freshest and
firmest spirit would falter, approaching near to so
bright an object : but I am one whom a cruel habit of
calamity has prepared to receive strong impressions.
Twenty days the unrelenting seas have tossed me up
and down coming from Ogygia, and at length cast me
shipwrecked last night upon your coast. I have seen no

102

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

man or woman since I landed but yourself. All that I
crave is clothes, which you may spare me, and to be
shown the way to some neighboring town. The gods
who have care of strangers, will requite you for these
courtesies.”

She, admiring to hear such complimentary words
proceed out of the mouth of one whose outside looked
so rough and unpromising, made answer : “Stranger,
I discern neither sloth nor folly in you, and yet I see
that you are poor and wretched ; from which I gather
that neither wisdom nor industry can secure felicity ;
only Jove bestows it upon whomsoever he pleases. He
perhaps has reduced you to this plight. However,
since your wanderings have brought you so near to our
city, it lies in our duty to supply your wants. Clothes
and what else a human hand should give to one
so suppliant, and so tamed with calamity, you shall not
want. We will show you our city and tell you the name
of our people. This is the land of the Phaeaciaus, of
which my father Alcinous is king.”

Then calling her attendants, who had dispersed on the
first sight of Ulysses, she rebuked them for their fear,
and said : “ This man is no Cyclop, nor monster of sea
or land, that you should fear him ; but he seems manly,
staid, and discreet, and though decayed in his outward
appearance, yet he has the mind’s riches — wit and
fortitude, in abundance. Show him the cisterns where
he may wash him from the sea-weeds and foam that
hang about him, and let him have garments that fit

The ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

103

him out of those which we have brought with us to the
cisterns. ’ ’

Ulysses, retiring a little out of sight, cleansed him in
the cisterns from the soil and impurities with which the
rocks and waves had covered all his body, and clothing
himself with befitting raiment, which the princess’
attendants had given him, he presented himself in more
worthy shape to Nausicaa. She admired to see what a
comely personage he was, now he was dressed in all parts
she thought him some king or hero : and secretly wished
that the gods would be pleased to give her such a husband.

Then causing her attendants to yoke her mules, and
lay up the vestments, which the sun’s heat had
sufficiently dried, in the coach, she ascended with her
maids, and drove off to the palace ; bidding Ulysses, as
she departed, keep an eye upon the coach, and to follow
it on foot at some distance : which she did, because if
she had suffered him to have rode in the coach with her,
it riright have subjected her to some misconstruction of
the common people, who are always ready to vilify and
censure their betters, and to suspect that charity is not
always pure charity, but that love or some sinister inten¬
tion lies hid under its disguise. So discreet and atten¬
tive to appearance in all her actions was this admirable
princess.

Ulysses, as he entered the city, wondered to see its
magnificence, its markets, buildings, temples ; its walls
and rampires ; its trade and resort of men ; its harbors
for shipping, which is the strength of the Phseacian

104

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

state. But when he approached the palace, and beheld
its riches, the proportion of its architecture, its
avenues, gardens, statues, fountains, he stood rapt in
admiration, and almost forgot his own condition in sur¬
veying the flourishing estate of others : but recollecting
himself, he passed on boldly into the inner apartment,
where the king and queen were sitting at dinner with their
peers ; Nausicaa having prepared them for his approach.

To them, humbly kneeling, he made it his request,
that since fortune had cast him naked upon their shores,
they would take him into their protection, and grant
him a conveyance by one of the ships, of which their
great Phseacian state had such good store, to carry him to
his own country. Having delivered his request, to grace
it with more humility, he went and sat himself down
upon the hearth among the ashes, as the custom was in
those days when any would make a petition to the throne.

He seemed a petitioner of so great state and of so
superior a deportment, that Alcinous himself arose to do
him honor, and causing him to leave that abject station
which he had assumed, placed him next to his throne,
upon a chair of state, and thus he spake to his peers :

“ Lords and counsellors of Phseacia, ye see this man,
who he is we know not, that is come to us in the guise
of a petitioner : he seems no mean one ; but whoever
he is, it is fit, since the gods have cast him upon our
protection, that we grant him the rites of hospitality
while he stays with us, and at his departure a ship
well-manned to convey so worthy a personage as he

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105

seems to be in a manner suitable to bis rank, to bis own
country.”

This counsel the peers with one consent approved ;
and wine and meat being set before Ulysses, he ate and
drank, and gave the gods thanks who had stirred up the
royal bounty of Alcinous to aid him in that extremity.
But not as yet did he reveal to the king and queen who
he was, or whence he had come ; only in brief terms
he related his being cast upon their shores, his sleep in
the woods, and his meeting with the princess Nansicaa :
whose generosity, mingled with discretion, . filled her
parents with delight, as Ulysses in eloquent phrases
adorned and commended her virtues. But Alcinous,
humanely considering that the troubles which his guest
had undergone required rest, as well as refreshment by
food, dismissed him early in the evening to his chamber ;
where in a magnificent apartment Ulysses found a
smoother bed, but not a sounder repose, than he had
enjoyed the night before, sleeping upon leaves which he
had scraped together in his necessity.

The Song of Demodocus.

CHAPTER VII.

The songs of Demodocus — The convoy home — The mariners trans¬
formed to stone — The young shepherd.

When it was day-light, Alcinous caused it to be pro¬
claimed by the heralds about the town that there was
come to the palace a stranger, shipwrecked on their coast,
that in mien and person resembled a god ; and inviting
all the chief people of the city to come and do honor to
the stranger.

The palace was quickly filled with guests, old and
young, for whose cheer, and to grace Ulysses more,
Alcinous made a kingly feast, with banquetings and
music. Then Ulysses being, seated at a table next the
king and queen, in all men’s view ; after they had
feasted, Alcinous ordered Demodocus, the court-singer,
to be called to sing some song of the deeds of heroes, to
charm the ear of his guest. Demodocus came and
reached his harp, where it hung between two pillars of
silver ; and then the blind singer, to whom, in recom¬
pense of his lost sight, the muses had given an inward
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THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

107

discernment, a soul and a voice to excite the hearts of
men and gods to delight, began in grave and solemn
strains to sing the glories of men highliest famed. He
chose a poem, whose subject was the stern strife stirred
up between Ulysses and great Achilles, as at a banquet
sacred to the gods in dreadful language they expressed
their difference ; while Agamemnon sat rejoiced in
soul to hear those Grecians jar : for the oracle in
Pytho had told him that the period of their wars in
Troy shoiild then be, when the kings of Greece,
anxious to arrive at the wished conclusion, should fall
to strife, and contend which must end the war, force or
stratagem.

This brave contention he expressed so to the life, in
the very words which they both used in the quarrel, as
brought tears into the eyes of Ulysses at the remem¬
brance of past passages of his life, and he held his large
purple weed before his face to conceal it. Then craving
a cup of wine, he poured it out in secret libation to the
gods, who had put into the mind of Demodocus un¬
knowingly to do him so much honor. But when the
moving poet began to tell of other occurrences where
Ulysses had been present, the memory of his brave
followers who had been with him in all difficulties,
now swallowed up and lost in the ocean, and of those
kings that had fought with him at Troy, some of whom
were dead, some exiles like himself, forced itself so
strongly upon his mind, that forgetful where he was,
he sobbed outright with passion ; which yet he re-

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strained, but not so cunningly but Alcinous perceived
it, and without taking notice of it to Ulysses, privately
gave signs that Demodocus should cease from his
singing.

o O

Next followed dancing in the Phseacian fashion,
when they would show respect to their guests ; which
was succeeded by trials of skill, games of strength,
running, racing, hurling of the quoit, mock fights,
hurling of the javelin, shooting with the bow ;„in some
of which Ulysses modestly challenging his entertainers,
performed such feats of strength and prowess as gave
the admiring Phseacians fresh reason to imagine that
he was either some god or hero of the race of the gods.

These solemn shows and pageants in honor of his
guest, king Alcinous continued for the space of many
days, as if he could never be weary of showing courte¬
sies to so worthy a stranger. In all this time he never
asked him his name, nor sought to know more of him
than he of his own accord disclosed : till on a day as
they were seated feasting, after the feast was ended,
Demodocus being called, as was the custom, to sing
some grave matter, sang how Ulysses, on that night
when Troy was fired, made dreadful proof of his valor,
maintaining singly a combat against the whole house¬
hold of Deiphobus, to which the divine expresser gave
both act and passion, and breathed such a fire into
Ulysses’ deeds, that it inspired old death with life in
the lively expressing of slaughters, and rendered life so
sweet and passionate in the hearers, that all who heard

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109

felt it fleet from them in the narration : which made
Ulysses even pity his own slaughterous deeds, and feel
touches of remorse, to see how song can revive a dead
man from the grave, yet no way can it defend a living
man from death : and in imagination he underwent
some part of death’s horrors, and felt in his living-
body a. taste of those dying pangs which he had dealt
to others ; that with the strong conceit, tears (the
true interpreters of unutterable emotion) stood in his
eyes.

Which, king Alcinous noting, and that this .was now
the second time that he had perceived him to be moved
at the mention of events touching the Trojan wars,' he
took occasion to ask whether his guest had lost any
friend or kinsman at Trov, that Demodocus’ singling-
had brought into his mind. Then Ulysses, drying the
tears with his cloak, and observing that the eyes of all
the company were upon him, desirous to give them
satisfaction in what he could, and thinking this a fit
time to reveal his true name and destination, spake as
follows :

“ The courtesies which ye all have shown me, and in
particular yourself and princely daughter, O king Al¬
cinous, demand from me that I should no longer keep
you in ignorance of what or who I am ; for to. reserve
any secret from you, who have with such openness of
friendship embraced my love, would argue either a
pusillanimous or an ungrateful mind in me. Know

then that I am that Ulysses , of whom I perceive ye have
8

110

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

heard something ; who heretofore have filled the world
with the renown of my policies. I am he by whose
counsels, if Fame is to be believed at all, more than by
the united valor of all the Grecians, Troy fell. I am
that unhappy man whom the heavens and angry gods
have conspired to keep an exile on the seas, wandering
to seek my home which still flies from me. The land
which I am in quest of is Ithaca ; in whose ports some
ship belonging to your navigation-famed Phseacian state
may haply at some time have found a refuge from tem¬
pests. If ever you have experienced such kindness,
requite it now, by granting to me, who am the king of
that land, a passport to that land.”

Admiration seized all the court of Alcinous to behold
in their presence one of the number of those heroes who
fought at Troy, whose divine story had been made
known to them by songs and poems, but of the truth
they had little known, or rather they had hitherto
accounted those heroic exploits as fictions and exaggera¬
tions of poets ; but having seen and made proof of the
real Ulysses, they began to take those supposed inven¬
tions to be real verities, and the tale of Troy to be as
true as it was delightful.

Then king Alcinous made answer : “Thrice fortunate
ought we to esteem our lot, in having seen and con¬
versed with a man of whom report hath spoken so
loudly, but, as it seems, nothing beyond the truth.
Though we could desire no felicity greater than to have
you always among us, renowned Ulysses, yet your

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

Ill

desire having been expressed so often and so deeply to
return home, we can deny you nothing, though to our
own loss. Our kingdom of Phaeacia, as you know, is
chiefly rich in shipping. In all parts of the world,
where there are navigable seas, or ships can pass, our
vessels will be found. You cannot name a coast to
which they do not resort. Every rock and deep quick¬
sand is known to them that lurks in the vast deep.
They pass a bird in flight ; and with such unerring
certainty they make to their destination, that some have
said they have no need of pilot or rudder, but -that they
move instinctively, self-directed, and know the minds
of their voyagers. Thus much, that you may not fear
to trust yourself in one of our Phseaciau ships. To¬
morrow if you please you shall launch forth. To-day
spend with us in feasting : who never can do enough
when the gods send such visitors.”

Ulysses acknowledged king Alcinous’ bounty ; and
while these two royal personages stood interchanging
courteous expressions, the heart of the princess Nausicaa
was overcome ; she had been gazing attentively upon
her father’s guest as he delivered his speech, but when
he came to that part where he declared himself to be
Ulysses, she blessed herself and her fortune that in
relieving a poor shipwrecked mariner, as he seemed no
better, she had conferred a kindness on so divine a hero
as he proved : and scarce waiting till her father had
done speaking, with a cheerful countenance she ad¬
dressed Ulysses, bidding him be cheerful, and when he

112

T HE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

returned home, as by her father’s means she trusted lie
would shortly, sometimes to remember to whom he
owed his life, and who met him by the river Calliroe.

“Fair flower of Phseacia,” he replied, “so may all
the gods bless me with the strife of joys in that desired
day, whenever I shall see it, as I shall always acknowl¬
edge to be indebted to your fair hand for the gift of life
which I enjoy, and all the blessings which shall follow
upon my home return. The gods give thee, Nausicaa,
a princely husband ; and from you two spring blessings
to this state.” So prayed Ulysses, his heart overflowing
with admiration and grateful recollections.

Then at the king’s request he gave them a brief rela¬
tion of all the adventures that had befallen him since
he launched forth from Troy, during which the princess
Nausicaa took great delight (as ladies are commonly
taken with these kind of traveller’s stories) to hear of
the monster Polyphemus, of the men that devour each
other in Usestrygonia, of the enchantress Circe, of
Scylla, and the rest ; to which she listened with a
breathless attention, letting fall a shower of tears from
her fair eyes every now and then, when Ulysses told of
some more than usual distressful passage in his travels :
and all the rest of his auditors, if they had before enter¬
tained a high respect for their guest, now felt their
veneration increased tenfold, when they learnt from his
own mouth what perils, what sufferings, what endur¬
ance, of evils beyond man’s strength to support, this
much-sustaining, almost heavenly man, by the greatness-

THE ADVENTURES OE ULYSSES.

113

of his mind, and by his invincible courage, had strug-
* gled through.

The night was far spent before Ulysses had ended his
narrative, and with wishful glances he cast his eyes
towards the eastern parts, which the sun had begun to
flecker with his first red : for on the morrow Alcinous
had promised that a bark should be in readiness to
convoy him to Ithaca.

In the morning a vessel well manned and appointed
was waiting for him ; into which the king and queen
heaped presents of gold and silver, massy plate, apparel,
armor, and whatsoever things of cost or rarity they
judged would be most acceptable to their guest : and
the sails being set, Ulysses embarking with expressions
of regret took his leave of his royal entertainers, of the
fair princess (who had been his first friend), and of the
peers of Phaeacia ; who crowding down to the beach to
have the last sight of their illustrious visitant, beheld
the gallant ship with all her canvas spread, bounding
and curveting over the waves, like a horse proud of his
rider ; or as if she knew that she bore Ulysses.

He whose life past had been a series of disquiets, in
seas among rude waves, in battles amongst ruder foes,
now slept securely, forgetting all ; his eyelids bound in
such deep sleep, as only yielded to death ; and when
they reached the nearest Ithacan port by the next morn¬
ing, he was still asleep. The mariners not willing to
awake him, landed him softly, and laid him in a cave at
the foot of an olive-tree, which made a shady recess in

114

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

that narrow harbor, the haunt of almost none but the
sea-nymphs, which are called Naiads ; few ships before •
this Phseacian vessel having put into that haven, by
reason of the difficulty and narrowness of the entrance..
Here leaving him asleep, and disposing in safe places
near him the presents with which king Alcinous had
dismissed him, they departed for Pheeacia ; where these
wretched mariners never again set foot ; but just as they
arrived, and thought to salute their country earth, in
sight of their city’s turrets, and in open view of their
friends who from the harbor with shouts greeted their
return, their vessel and all the mariners which were in
her were turned to stone, and stood transformed and
fixed in sight of the whole Phaeacian city, where it yet
stands, by Neptune’s vindictive wrath ; who resented
thus highly the contempt which those Phaeacians had
shown in convoying home a man whom the god had
destined to destruction. Hence the Phaeacians at this day
will at no price be induced to lend their ships to stran¬
gers, or to become the carriers for other nations, so
highly do they still dread the displeasure of the sea-god,
while they see that terrible monument ever in sight.

When Ulysses awoke, which was not till some time
after the mariners had departed, he did not at first know
his country again, either that long absence had made it
strange, or that Minerva (which was more likely) had
cast a cloud about his eyes, that he should have greater
pleasure hereafter in discovering his mistake ; but like
a man suddenly awaking in some desert isle, to whicli

Ulysses Awakens in Ithaca.

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

117

his sea-mates have transported him in his sleep, he
looked around, and discerning no known objects, he cast
his hands to heaven for pity, and complained on those
ruthless men who had beguiled him with a promise of
•conveying him home to his country, and perfidiously
left him to perish in an unknown land. But then the
rich presents of gold and silver given him by Alcinous,
which he saw carefully laid up in secure places near
him, staggered him : which seemed not like the act of
wrongful or unjust men, such as turn pirates for gain, or
land helpless passengers on remote coasts to possess
themselves of their goods.

While he remained in this suspense, there came up to
him a young shepherd, clad in the finer sort of apparel,
such as kings’ sons wore in those days when princes did
not disdain to tend sheep, who accosting him, was
saluted again by Ulysses, who asked him what country
that was, on which he had been just landed, and
whether it were a part of a continent or an island. The
young shepherd made show of wonder, to hear any one
ask the name of that land ; as country people are apt to es¬
teem those for mainly ignorant and barbarous who do not
know the names of places which are familiar to them ,
though perhaps they who ask have had no opportunities
of knowing, and may have come from far countries.

“I had thought,” said he, “ that all people knew our
land. It is rocky and barren, to be sure ; but well
enough : it feeds a goat or an ox well ; it is not wanting
neither in wine nor in wheat ; it has good springs of

118

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

water, some fair rivers ; and wood enough, as you may'
see : it is called Ithaca.”

Ulysses was joyed enough to find himself in his own
country ; but so prudently he carried his joy,, that dis¬
sembling his true name and quality, he pretended to the
shepherd that he was only some foreigner who by stress
of weather had put into that port : and framed on the
sudden a story to make it plausible, how he had come
from Crete in a ship of Pliseacia ; when the young shep¬
herd laughing, and taking Ulysses’ hand in both his,
said to him : “ He must be cunning, I find, who thinks
to overreach you. What, cannot you quit your wiles
and your subtleties, now that you are in a state of
security? must the first word with which you salute
your native earth be an untruth ? and think you that
you are unknown? ”

Ulysses looked again ; and he saw, not a shepherd,
but a beautiful woman, whom he immediately knew to
be the goddess Minerva, that in the wars of Troy had
frequently vouchsafed her sight to him ; and had been
with him since in perils, saving him unseen.

“ Let not my ignorance offend thee, great Minerva,”
he cried, “or move thy displeasure, that in that shape I
knew thee not ; since the skill of discerning the deities
is not attainable by wit or study, but hard to be hit by
the wisest of mortals. To know thee trulv through all
thy changes is only given to those whom thou art
pleased to grace. To all men thou takest all like¬
nesses. All men in their wits think that they know

Ulysses and the Goddess Minerva.

(119)

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

121

thee, and that they have thee. Thou art wisdom itself.
But a semblance of thee, which is false wisdom, often is
taken for thee : so thy counterfeit view appears to many,
but thy true presence to few: those are they which,
loving thee above all, are inspired with light from thee
to know thee. But this I surely know, that all the
time the sons of Greece waged war against Troy, I was
sundry times graced with thy appearance ; but since,
I have never been able to set eyes upon thee ; but have
wandered at my own discretion, to myself a blind guide,
erring up and down the world, wanting thee. ”

Then Minerva cleared his eyes, and he knew the
ground on which he stood to be Ithaca, and that cave to
be the same which the people of Ithaca had in former
times made sacred to the sea-nymphs, and where he
himself had done sacrifices to them a thousand times ;
and full in his view stood Mount Nerytus with all its
woods : so that now he knew for a certainty that he was
arrived in his own country, and with the delight which
he felt could not forbear stooping and kissing the soil.

The transformation of Ulysses by Minerva.

CHAPTER VIII.

The change from a king to a beggar — Eumseus and the herdsmen —

Telemachus.

Not long did Minerva suffer Him to indulge vain
transports, but briefly recounting to him the events
which had taken place in Ithaca during his absence, she
showed him that his way to his wife and throne did not
lie so open, but that before he was reinstated in the
secure possession of them he must encounter many diffi¬
culties. His palace, wanting its king, was become a
resort of insolent and imperious men, the chief nobility
of Ithaca and of the neighboring isles, who, in the con¬
fidence of Ulysses being dead, came as suitors to
Penelope. The queen (it was true) continued single,
but was little better than a state-prisoner in the power
of these men, who under a pretence of waiting her
decision, occupied the king’s house, rather as owners
than guests, lording and domineering at their pleasure,
profaning the palace, and wasting the royal substance,

with their feasts and mad riots. Moreover, the goddess
(122) .

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES

123

told him how, fearing the attempts of these lawless men
upon the person of his young son Telemachus, she her¬
self had put it into the heart of the prince to go and seek
his father in far countries ; how in the shape of Mentor
she had borne him company in his long search ; which,
though failing, as she meant it should fail, in its first
object, had yet had this effect, that through hardships
he had learned endurance, through experience he had
gathered wisdom, and wherever his footsteps had been
he had left such memorials of his worth, as the fame of
Ulysses’ son was already blown throughout the world.
That it was now not many days since Telemachus had
arrived in the island, to the great joy of the queen, his
mother, who had thought him dead, by reason of his
long absence, and had begun to mourn for him with a
grief equal to that which she endured for Ulysses ; the
goddess herself having so ordered the course of his
adventures that the time of his return should correspond
with the return of Ulysses, that they might together
concert measures how to repress the power and insolence
-of those wicked suitors. This the goddess told him ;
but of the particulars of his son’s adventures, of his
having been detained in the Delightful Island, which
his father had so lately left, of Calypso, and her nymphs,
and the many strange occurrences which may be read
with profit and delight in the history of the prince’s
adventures, she forbore to tell him as yet, as judging
that he would hear them with greater pleasure from
the lips of his son, when he should have him in an

124

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

hour of stillness and safety, when their work should be
done, and none of their enemies left alive to trouble
them.

Then they sat down, the goddess and Ulysses, at the
foot of a wild olive-tree, consulting how they might with
safety bring about his restoration. And when Ulysses
revolved in his mind how that his enemies were a multi¬
tude, and he single, he began to despond, and he said :

‘ ‘ I shall die an ill death like Agamemnon ; in the
threshold of my own house I shall perish, like that un¬
fortunate monarch, slain by some one of my wife’s
suitors.” But then again calling to mind his ancient
courage, he secretly wished that Minerva would but
breathe such a spirit into his bosom as she enflamed him
with in the day of Troy’s destruction, that he might
encounter with three hundred of those impudent suitors
at once, and strew the pavements of his beautiful palace
with their blood and brains.

And Minerva knew his thoughts, and she said : “I
will be strongly with thee, if thou fail not to do thy
part. And for a sign between us that I will perform
my promise, and for a token on thy part of obedience, I
must change thee, that thy person may not be known
of men.”

Then Ulysses bowed his head to receive the divine
impression, and Minerva by her great power changed
his person so that it might not be known. She changed
him to appearance into a very old man, yet such a one
as by his limbs and gait seemed to have been some con-

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125

siderable person in his time and to retain yet some re¬
mains of his own prodigious strength. Also, instead
of those rich robes in which king Alcinous had clothed
him, she threw over his limbs such old and tattered rags
as wandering beggars usually wear. A staff supported
his steps, and a scrip hung to his back, such as travel¬
ling mendicants use, to hold the scraps which are given
to them at rich men’s doors. So from a king he became
a beggar, as wise Tiresias had predicted to him in the
shades.

To complete his humiliation, and to prove his obe¬
dience by suffering, she next directed him in this beggarly
attire to go and present himself to his old herdsman Eu-
mseus, who had the care of his swine and his cattle, and
had been a faithful steward to him all the time of his
absence. Then strictly charging Ulysses that he should
reveal himself to no man but to his own son, whom she
would send to him when she saw occasion, the goddess
went her way.

The transformed Ulysses bent his course to the cottage

of the herdsman, and entering it at the front court, the

dogs, of which Eumseus kept many fierce ones for the

protection of the cattle, flew with open mouths upon

him, as those ignoble animals have ofttimes an antipathy

to the sight of anything like a beggar, and would have

rent him in pieces with their teeth, if Ulysses had not

had the prudence to let fall his staff, which had chiefly

provoked their fury, and sat himself down in a careless

fashion upon the ground ; but for all that some serious
9

126

THE ADVENTURES OF UEYSSES.

liurt had certainly been done to him, so raging the dogs
were, had not the herdsman, whom the barking of the
dogs had fetched out of the house, with shouting and
with throwing of stones repressed them.

He said, when he saw Ulysses, “ Old father, how near
you were to being torn in pieces by these rude dogs ! I
should never have forgiven myself, if through neglect
of mine any hurt had happened to you. But heaven
has given me so many cares to my portion, that I might
well be excused for not attending to everything : while
here I lie grieving and mourning for the absence of
that majesty which once ruled here, and am forced to
fatten his swine and his cattle for evil men, who hate
him, and who wish his death ; when he perhaps strays
up and down the world, and has not wherewith to ap¬
pease hunger, if indeed he yet lives (which is a ques¬
tion)' and enjoys the cheerful light of the sun.” This
he said, little thinking that he of whom he spoke now
stood before him, and that in that uncouth disguise and
beggarly obscurity was present the hidden majesty of
Ulysses.

Then he had his guest into the house, and set meat
and drink before him; and Ulysses said, “May Jove
and all the other gods requite you for the kind speeches
and hospitable usage which you have shown me ! ”

Eumseus made answer, “My poor guest, if one in
much worse plight than yourself had arrived here, it
were a shame to such scanty means as I have, if I had
let him depart without entertaining him to the best of

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

127

my ability. Poor men, and such as have no houses of
their own, are by Jove himself recommended to our
care. But the cheer which we that are servants to
other men have to bestow, is but sorry at most, yet
freely and lovingly I give it you. Indeed there once
ruled here a man, whose return the gods have set their
faces against, who, if he had been suffered to reign in
peace and grow old among us, would have been kind to
me and mine. But he is gone ; and for his sake would
to God that the whole posterity of Helen might perish
with her, since in her quarrel so many worthies have
perished. But such as your fare is, eat it, and be wel¬
come ; such lean beasts as are food for poor herdsmen.
The fattest go to feed the voracious stomachs of the
queen’s suitors. Shame on their unworthiness, there is
no day in which two or three of the noblest of the
herd are not slain to support their feasts and their
surfeits.”

Ulysses gave good ear to his words, and as he ate his
meat, he even tore it and rent it with his teeth, for mere
vexation that his fat cattle should be slain to glut the
appetites of those godless suitors. And he said, “What
chief or what ruler is this, that thou commendest so
highly, and sayest that he perished at Troy ? I am but
a stranger in these parts. It may be I have heard of
some such in my long travels.”

Kumseus answered, “Old father, never one of all the
strangers that have come to our coast with news of
Ulysses being alive, could gain credit with the queen or

128

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

lier son yet. These travellers, to get raiment or a meal,
will not stick to invent any lie. Truth is not the
commodity they deal in. Never did the queen get any-
thing of them but lies. She receives all that come
graciously, hears their stories, inquires all she can, but
all ends in tears and dissatisfaction. But in God’s
name, old father, if you have got a tale, make the most
ou’t, it may gain you a cloak or a coat from somebody
to keep you warm : but for him who is the subject of it,
dogs and vultures loug since have torn him limb from
limb, or some great fish at sea has devoured him, or he
lieth with no better monument upon his bones than the
sea-sand. But for me, past all the race of men, were
tears created : for I never shall find so kind a royal
master more ; not if my father or my mother could come
again and visit me from the tomb, would my eyes be so
blessed, as they should be with the sight of him again,
coming as from the dead. In his last rest my soul shall
love him. He is not here, nor do I name him as a flat¬
terer, but because I am thankful for his love aud care
which he had to me a poor man ; and if I knew surely
that lie was past all shores that the sun shines upon, I
would invoke him as a deified thing.”

For this saying of Eumseus the waters stood in
Ulysses’ eyes, and he said, “ My friend, to say and to
affirm positively that he cannot be alive, is to give too
much license to incredulity. For, not to speak at ran¬
dom, but with as much solemnity as an oath comes to,
I say to you that Ulysses shall return, and whenever

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES. 12&

that day shall be, then shall you give to me a cloak and a
coat ; but till then, I will not receive so much as a thread'
of a garment, but rather go naked ; for no less than the
gates of hell do I hate that man, whom poverty can
force to tell an untruth. Be Jove then witness to my
words, that this very year, nay ere this month be fully
ended, your eyes shall behold Ulysses, dealing vengeance
in his own palace upon the wrongers of his wife and
his son.”

To give the better credence to his words, he amused
Eumseus with a forged story of his life, feigning of him¬
self that he was a Cretan born, and one that went with
Idomeneus to the wars of Troy. Also he said that he
knew Ulysses, and related various passages which he
alleged to have happened betwixt Ulysses and himself,
which were either true in the main, as having really
happened between Ulysses and some other person, or
were so like to truth, as corresponding with the known
character and actions of Ulysses that Eumseus’ incredu¬
lity was not a little shaken. Among other things he as¬
serted that he had lately been entertained in the court
of Thesprotia, where the king’s son of the country had
told him that Ulysses had been there but just before him,,
and was gone upon a voyage to the oracle of Jove ini
Dodona, whence he should shortly return, and a ship,
would be ready by the bounty of the Thesprotians to.
convoy him straight to Ithaca. “And in token that
what I tell you is true,” said Ulysses, “if your king
come not within the period which I have named, you

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THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

shall have leave to give your servants commandment to
take my old carcass and throw it headlong from some
steep rock into the sea, that poor men, taking example
by me, may fear to lie.” But Eumseus made answer
that that should be small satisfaction or pleasure to him.

So while they sat discoursing in this manner, supper
was served in, and the servants of the herdsman, who
had been out all day in the fields, came in to supper,
and took their seats at the fire, for the night was bitter
and frosty. After supper, Ulysses, who had well eaten
and drunken, and was refreshed with the herdsman’s
good cheer, was resolved to try whether his host’s hos¬
pitality would extend to the lending him a good warm
mantle or rug to cover him in the niglit-season ; and
framing an artful tale for the purpose, in a merry mood,
filling a cup of Greek wine, he thus began :

“I will tell you a story of your king Ulysses and my¬
self. If there is ever a time when a man may have leave
to tell his own stories, it is when he has drunken a little
too much. Strong liquor driveth the fool, and moves
even the heart of the wise, moves and impels him to
.sing and to dance, and break forth in pleasant laughters,
and perchance to prefer a speech, too, which were better
kept in. When the heart is open the tongue will be
stirring. But you shall hear. We led our powers to
ambush ouce under the walls of Troy.”

The herdsmen crowded about him eager to hear any¬
thing which related to their king Ulysses and the wars
of Troy, and thus he went on :

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131

“ I remember Ulysses and Menelaus had the direction
of that enterprise, and they were pleased to join me with
them in the command. I was at that time in some
repute among men, though fortune has played me a
trick since, as you may perceive. But I was somebody

in those times, and could do something. Be that as it
may, a bitter, freezing night it was, such a night as
this, the air cut like steel, and the sleet gathered on
our shields like crystals. There was some twenty of us
that lay close crouched down among the reeds and bul¬
rushes that grew in the moat that goes round the city.
The rest of us made tolerable shift, for every man had
been careful to bring with him a good cloak or mantle
to wrap over his armor and keep himself warm ; but I,
as it chanced, had left my cloak behind me, as not ex¬
pecting that the night would prove so cool, or rather I
believe because I had at that time a brave suit of new
armor on, which being a soldier, and having some of
the soldier’s vice about me, vanity , I was not willing
should be hidden under a cloak ; but I paid for my indis¬
cretion with my sufferings, for the inclement night, and
the wet of the ditch in which we lay, I was well-nigh
frozen to death ; and when I could endure no longer, I
jogged Ulysses, who was next to me, and had a nimble
ear, and make known my case to him, assuring him
that I must inevitably perish. He answered in a low
whisper, 1 Hush, lest any Greek should hear you, and
take notice of your softness.’ Not a word more he said,
but showed as if he had no pity for the plight I was in.

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THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

But he was as considerate as he was brave, and even
then, as he lay with his head reposing upon his hand,
he was meditating how to relieve me, without exposing
my weakness to the soldiers. At last raising up his
head, he made as if he had been asleep, and said,

‘ Friends, I have been warned in a dream to send to
the fleet to king Agamemnon for a supply, to recruit
our numbers, for we are not sufficient for this enter¬
prise;’ and they believing him, one Thoas was de¬
spatched on that errand, who departing, for more speed,
as Ulysses had foreseen, left his upper garment behind
him, a good warm mantle, to which I succeeded, and by
the help of it got through the night with credit. This
shift Ulysses made for one in need, and would to heaven
that I had now the strength in my limbs, which made
me in those days to be accounted fit to be a leader under
Ulysses ! I should not then want the loan of a cloak or
mantle, to wrap about me and shield my old limbs from
the night-air.”

The tale pleased the herdsmen ; and Eumseus, who
more than all the rest was gratified to hear tales of
Ulysses, true or false, said, that for this story he de¬
served a mantle and a night’s lodging, which he should
have ; and he spread for him a bed of goat and sheep
skins by the fire ; and the seeming beggar, who was in¬
deed the true Ulysses, lay down and slept under that
poor roof, in that abject disguise to which the will of
Minerva had subjected him.

When morning was come, Ulysses made offer to

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES. 133

depart, as if he were not willing to burthen his host’s
hospitality any longer, but said that he would go and
try the humanity of the town’s folk, if any there would
bestow upon him a bit of bread or a cup of drink.
Perhaps the queen’s suitors (he said) out of their full
feasts would bestow a scrap on him : for he could wait
at table, if need were, and play the nimble serving-man,
he could fetch wood (he said) or build a fire, prepare
roast meat or boiled, mix the wine with water, or do any
of those offices which recommended poor men like him
to do services in great men’s houses.

“Alas! poor guest,” said Eumaeus, “you know not
what you speak. What should so poor and old a man as
you do at the suitors’ tables? Their light minds are
not given to such grave servitors. They must have
youths, richly tricked out in flowing vests, with curled
hair, like so many of Jove’s cup-bearers, to fill out the
wine to them as they sit at table, and to shift their
trenchers. Their gorged insolence would but despise
and make a mock at thy age. Stay here. Perhaps the
queen, or Telemachus, hearing of thy arrival, may send
to thee of their bounty.”

As he spake these words, the steps of one crossing the
front court were heard, and a noise of the dogs fawning
and leaping about as for joy ; by which token Eumaeus
guessed that it was the prince, who hearing of a traveler
being arrived at Eumaeus’ cottage that brought tidings
of his father, was come to search the truth, and Eumaeus
said : “It is the tread of Telemachus, the son of king

134

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

Ulysses.” Before lie could well speak the words, the
prince was at the door, whom Ulysses rising to receive,
Telemachus would not suffer that so aged a man, as he
appeared, should rise to do respect to him, but he cour¬
teously and reverently took him by the hand, and
inclined his head to him, as if he had surely known that
it was his father indeed : but Ulysses covered his eyes
with his hands, that he might not show the waters
which stood in them. And Telemachus said, “Is
this the man who can tell us tidings of the king my
father ? ”

“He brags himself to be a Cretan born,” said
Kumseus, ‘ ‘ and that he has been a soldier and a traveler,
but whether he speak the truth or not, he alone can tell.
But whatsoever he has been, what he is now is apparent.
Such as he appears, I give him to you ; do what you will
with him ; his boast at present is that he is at the very
best a supplicant.”

“Be he what he may,” said Telemachus, “I accept
him at your hands. But where I should bestow him I
know not, seeing that in the palace his age would not
exempt- him from the scorn and contempt which my
mother’s suitors in their light minds would be sure to
fling upon him. A mercy if he escaped without blows :
for they are a company of evil men, whose profession is
wrongs and violence.”

Ulysses answered : “ Since it is free for any man to
speak in presence of your greatness, I must say that my
heart puts on a wolfish inclination to tear and to devour,

THE ADVENTURES OF UEYSSES.

135

hearing your speech, that these suitors should with such
injustice rage, where you should have the rule solely.
What should the cause be? do you wilfully give way to
their ill manners ? or has your government been such as
has procured ill-will toward you from your people? or
do you mistrust your kinsfolk and friends in such sort,
as without trial to decline their aid? a man’s kindred
are they that he might trust to when extremities ran
high.”

Telemachus replied: “The kindred of Ulysses are
few. I have no brothers to assist me in the strife. But
the suitors are powerful in kindred and friends. The
house of old Arcesius has had this fate from the heavens,
that from old it still has been supplied with single heirs.
To Arcesius Laertes only was born, from Laertes
descended only Ulysses, from Ulysses I alone have
sprung, whom he left so young, that from me never
comfort arose to him. But the end of all rests in the
hands of the gods.”

Then Kumseus departing to see to some necessary
business of his herds, Minerva took a woman’s shape,
and stood in the entry of the door, and was seen to
Ulysses, but by his son she was not seen, for the
presences of the gods are invisible save to those to whom
they will to reveal themselves. Nevertheless the dogs
which were about the door saw the goddess, and durst
not bark, but went crouching and licking of the dust
for fear. And giving signs to Ulysses that the time was
now come in which he should make himself known to

136

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

his son, by her great power she changed back his shape
into the same which it was before she transformed him ;
and Telemachus, who saw the change, bnt nothing of
the manner by which it was effected, only he saw the
appearance of a king in the vigor of his age where but
just now he had seen a worn and decrepit beggar, was
struck with fear, and said, “Some god has done this
house this honor,” and he turned away his eyes, and
would have worshipped. But his father permitted not,
but said, ‘ ‘ Look better at me ; I am no deity, why put
you upon me the reputation of godhead ? I am no more
but thy father : I am even he ; I am that Ulysses, by
reason of whose absence thy youth has been exposed to
such wrongs from injurious men.” Then kissed he his
son, nor could any longer refrain those tears which he
had held under such mighty restraint before, though
they would ever be forcing themselves out in spite of
him ; but now, as if their sluices had burst, they came
out like rivers, pouring upon the warm cheeks of his
sou. Nor yet by all these violent arguments could
Telemachus be persuaded to believe that it was his
father, but he said, some deity had taken that- shape to
mock him ; for he affirmed, that it was not in the power
of any man, who is sustained by mortal food, to change
his shape so in a moment from age to youth : for “ but
now,” said he, “you were all wrinkles, and were old,
and now you look as the gods are pictured.”

His father replied : “Admire, but fear not, and know
me to be at all parts substantially thy father, who in the

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137

inner powers of his mind, and the unseen workings of a
father’s love to thee, answers to his outward shape and
pretense ! There shall no more Ulysseses come here. I
am he that after twenty years’ absence, and suffering a
world of ill, have recovered at last the sight of my country
earth. It was the will of Minerva that I should be
changed as you saw me. She put me thus together ;
she puts together or takes to pieces whom she pleases.
It is in the law of her free power to do it : sometimes to
show her favorites under a cloud, and poor, and again
to restore to them their ornaments. The gods raise and
throw down men with ease.”

Then Telemachus could hold out no longer, but he
gave way now to a full belief and persuasion, of that
which for joy at first he could not credit, that it was
indeed his true and very father, that stood before him ;
and they embraced, and mingled their tears.

Then said Ulysses, “Tell me who these suitors are,
what are their numbers, and how stands the queen thy
mother affected to them ? ’ ’

“She bears them still in expectation,” said Te-
lemachus, “which she never means to fulfil, that she
will accept the hand of some one of them in second
nuptials. For she fears to displease them by an absolute
refusal. So from day to day she lingers them on with
hope, which they are content to bear the deferring of,
while they have entertainment at free cost in our
palace.”

Then said Ulysses, “Reckon up their numbers that

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we may know their strength and ours, if we having none
but ourselves may hope to prevail against them.”

“O father,” he replied, “I have ofttimes heard of
your fame for wisdom, and of the great strength of your
arm, but the venturous mind which your speeches now
indicate moves me even to amazement : for in no wise
can it consist with wisdom or a sound mind, that two
should try their strengths against a host. Nor five, or
ten, or twice ten strong are these suitors, but many more
by much : from Dulichium came there fifty and two,
they and their servants ; twice twelve crossed the seas
hither from Samos ; from Zacynthus twice ten ; of our
native Ithacans, men of chief note, are twelve who aspire
to the bed and crown of Penelope ; and all these under
one strong roof, a fearful odds against two ! My father,
there is need of caution, lest the cup which your great
mind so thirsts to taste of vengeance prove bitter to
yourself in the drinking. And therefore it were well
that we would bethink us of some one who might assist
us in this undertaking.”

“ Thinkest thou,” said his father, “ if we had Minerva
and the king of skies to be our friends, would their
sufficiencies make strong our part ; or must we look out
for some further aid yet ? ”

“They you speak of are above the clouds,” said Te-
lemachus, “and are sound aids indeed ; as powers that not
only exceed human, but bear the chiefest sway among
the gods themselves.”

Then Ulysses gave directions to his son to go and

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

139'

mingle with the suitors, and in nowise to impart his
secret to any, not even to the queen his mother, but to
hold himself in readiness, and to have his weapons and
his good armor in preparation. And he charged him,
that when he himself should come to the palace, as he
meant to follow shortly after and present himself in his
beggar’s likeness to the suitors, that whatever he should
see which might grieve his heart, with what foul usage
and contumelious language soever the suitors should re¬
ceive his father, coming in that shape, though they should
strike and drag him by the heels along the floors, that
he should not stir nor make offer to oppose them, further
than by mild words to expostulate with them, until
Minerva from heaven should give the sign which should
be the prelude to their destruction. And Telemachus
promising to obey his instructions departed ; and the
shape of Ulysses fell to what it had been before, and he
became to all outward appearance a beggar, in base and
beggarly attire.

The Suitors of Penelope.

CHAPTER IX.

The queen’s suitors — The battle of the beggars — The armor taken
down — The meeting with Penelope.

From the house of Eumaeus the seeming beggar took
his way, leaning on his staff, till he reached the palace,
entering in at the hall where the suitors sat at meat.
They in the pride of their feasting began to break
their jests in mirthful manner, when they saw one
looking so poor and so aged approach. He who ex¬
pected no better entertainment was nothing moved at
their behavior, but, as became the character which he
had assumed, in a suppliant posture crept by turns to
every suitor, and held out his hands for some charity,
with such a natural and beggar-resembling grace, that
he might seem to have practised begging all his life ; yet
there was a sort of dignity in his most abject stoopings,
that whoever had seen him would have said, If it had
pleased heaven that this poor man had been born a king,
he would gracefully have filled a throne. And, some

pitied him, and some gave him alms, as their present
(140)

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

141

humors inclined them, but the greater part reviled him,
and bid him begone, as one that spoiled their feast ; for
the presence of misery has this power with it, that while
it stays, it can dash and overturn the mirth even of
those who feel no pity or wish to relieve it ; nature
bearing this witness of herself in the hearts of the most
obdurate.

Now Telemachus sat at meat with the suitors, and
knew that it was the king his father, who in that shape
begged an alms ; and when his father came and pre¬
sented himself before him in turn, as he had done to the
suitors one by one, he gave him of his own meat which
he had in his dish, and of his own cup to drink. And
the suitors were past measure offended to see a pitiful
beggar, as they esteemed him, to be so choicely regarded
by the prince.

Then Antinous, who was a great lord, and of chief
note among the suitors, said, “ Prince Telemachus does
ill to encourage these wandering beggars, who go from
place to place, affirming that they have been some con¬
siderable persons in their time, filling the ears of such
as hearken to them with lies, and pressing with their
bold feet into kings’ palaces. This is some saucy vaga¬
bond, some travelling Egyptian.”

“I see,” said Ulysses, “that a poor man should get
but little at your board, scarce should he get salt from
your hands if he brought his own meat.”

Lord Antinous, indignant to be answered with such

sharpness by a supposed beggar, snatched up a stool,
10

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THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

with which he smote Ulysses where the neck and
shoulders join. This usage moved not Ulysses ; but
in his great heart he meditated deep evils to come upon
them all, which for a time must be kept close, and
he went and sat himself down in the doorway to eat
of that which was given him, and he said, “ For life
or possessions a man will fight, but for his belly this
man smites. If a poor man has any god to take his
part, my lord Antinous shall not live to be the queen’s
husband.”

Then Antinous raged highly, and threatened to drag
him by the heels, and to rend his rags about his ears, if
he spoke another word.

But the other suitors did in no wise approve of the
harsh language, nor of the blow which Antinous had
dealt ; and some of them said, “ Who knows but one of
the deities goes about, hid under that poor disguise? for
in the likeness of poor pilgrims the gods have many
times descended to try the dispositions of men, whether
they be humane or impious.” While these things
passed, Telemachus sat and observed all, but held his
peace, remembering the instructions of his father. But
secretly he waited for the sign which Minerva was to send
from heaven.

That day there followed Ulysses to the court one of
the common sort of beggars, Irus by name, one that had
received alms beforetime of the suitors, and was their
ordinary sport, when they were inclined (as that dav) to
give way to mirth, to see him eat and drink ; for he had

the ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

143

the appetite of six men ; and was of huge stature and
proportions of body ; yet had iu him no spirit nor
courage of a man. This man, thinking to curry favor
with the suitors, and recommend himself especially to
such a great lord as Antinous was, began to revile and
scorn Ulysses, putting foul language upon him, and
fairly challenging him to -fight with the fist. But
Ulysses, deeming his railings to be nothing more than
jealousy and that envious disposition which beggars
commonly manifest to brothers in their trade, mildly
besought him not to trouble him, but to enjoy that por¬
tion which the liberality of their entertainers gave him,
as he did, quietly ; seeing that of their bounty there
was sufficient for all.

But Irus, thinking that this forbearance in Ulysses
was nothing more than a sign of fear, so much the more
highly stormed, and bellowed, and provoked him to fight ;
and by this time the quarrel had attracted the notice of
the suitors, who with loud laughter and shouting egged
on the dispute, and lord Antinous swore by all the gods
it should be a battle, and that in that hall the strife
should be determined. To this the rest of the suitors
with violent clamors acceded, and a circle was made for
the combatants, and a fat goat was proposed as the
victor’s prize, as at the Olympic or the Pythian games..
Then Ulysses, seeing no remedy, or being not unwilling
that the suitors should behold some proof of that strength
which ere long in their own persons they were to taste
of, stripped himself, and prepared for the combat. But

144

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

first lie demanded that he should have fair play shown
him, that none in that assembly should aid his opponent,
or take part against him, for, being an old man, they
might easily crush him with their strengths. And Tele-
maclius passed his word that no foul play should be
shown him, but that each party should be left to their
own unassisted strengths, and to this he made Autinous
and the rest of the suitors swear.

But when Ulysses had laid aside his garments, and
was bare to the waist, all the beholders admired at the
goodly sight of his large shoulders being of such ex¬
quisite shape and whiteness, and at his great and
brawny bosom, and the youthful strength which seemed
to remain in a man thought so old ; and they said :
“What limbs and what sinews he lias!” and coward
fear seized on the mind of that great vast beggar, and
he dropped his threats and big words, and would have
fled, but lord Antiuous stayed him, and threatened him
that if he declined the combat, he would put him a
ship, and land him on the shores where king Echetus
reigned, the roughest tyrant which at that time the
world contained, and who had that antipathy to rascal
beggars, such as he, that when any lauded on his coast,
he would crop their ears and noses and give them to the
dogs to tear. So Irus, in whom fear of king Echetus
prevailed above the fear of Ulysses, addressed himself to
fight. But Ulysses, provoked to be engaged in so odious
a strife with a fellow of his base conditions, and loathing:
longer to be made a spectacle to entertain the eyes of

THE ADVENTURES OE ULYSSES.

145

his foes, with one blow which he struck him beneath
the ear, so shattered the teeth and jawbone of this soon
baffled coward, that he laid him sprawling in the dust,
with small stomach or ability to renew the contest.
Then raising him on his feet, he led him bleeding and
sputtering to the door, and put his staff into his hand,
and bid him go irse his command upon dogs and swine,
but not presume himself to be lord of the guests another
time, nor of the beggary !

The suitors applauded in their vain minds the issue
of the contest, and rioted in mirth at the expense of poor
Irus, who they vowed should be forthwith embarked
and sent to king Echetus ; and they bestowed thanks on
Ulysses for ridding the court of that unsavory morsel,
as they called him ; but in their inward souls they
would not have cared if Irus had been victor, and
Ulysses had taken the foil, but it was mirth to them to
see the beggars fight. In such pastimes and light enter¬
tainments the day wore away.

When evening was come the suitors betook them¬
selves to music and dancing. And Ulysses leaned his
back against a pillar from which certain lamps hung
which gave light to the dancers, and he made show of
watching the dancers, but very different thoughts were
in his head. And as he stood near the lamps, the light
fell upon his head, which was thin of hair and bald, as
an old man’s. And Eurymachus, a suitor, taking occa¬
sion from some words which were spoken before, scoffed
and said : “Now I know for a certainty that some god

146

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

lurks under the poor and beggarly appearance of this
man, for as he stands by the lamps, his sleek head
throws beams around it, like as it were a glory.” And
another said : “ He passes his time too not much unlike
the gods, lazily living exempt from labor, taking offer¬
ings of men.” “I warrant,” said Eurymachus again,
“ he could not raise a fence or dig a ditch for his liveli¬
hood, if a man would hire him to work in a garden.”

“I wish,” said Ulysses, “that you who speak this
and myself were to be tried at any task-work, that I had
a good crooked scythe put in my hand, that was sharp
and strong, and you such another, where the grass grew
longest, to be up by daybreak, mowing the meadows
till the sun went down, not tasting of food till we had
finished, or that we were set to plough four acres in one
day of good glebe land, to see whose furrows w^ere even¬
ts t and cleanest, or that we miodit have one wrestling
bout together, or that in our right hands a good steel¬
headed lance were placed, to try whose blows fell
heaviest and thickest upon the adversary’s headpiece.
I would cause you such work, as you should have small
reason to reproach me with being slack at work. But
you would do well to spare me this reproach, and to
save your strength, till the owner of this house shall
return, till the day when Ulysses shall return, when
returning he shall enter upon his birthright.”

This was a galling speech to those suitors, to whom
Ulysses’ return was indeed the thing which they most
dreaded ; and a sudden fear fell upon their souls, as if

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147

they were sensible of the real presence of that man who
did indeed stand amongst them, but not in that form

as they might know him ; and Eurymachus, incensed,
snatched a massy cup which stood on a table near, and
hurled it at the head of the supposed beggar, and but
narrowly missed the hitting of him ; and all the suitors
rose, as at once, to thrust him out of the hall, which
they said his beggarly presence and his rude speeches
had profaned. But Telemachus cried to them to for¬
bear, and not to presume to lay hands upon a wretched
man to whom he had promised protection. , He asked
if they were mad, to mix such abhorred uproar with his
feasts. He bade them take their food and their wine,
to sit up or go to bed at their free pleasures, so long as he
should give license to that freedom ; but why should
they abuse his banquet, or let the words which a poor beg¬
gar spake have power to move their spleens so fiercely ?

They bit their lips and frowned for auger, to be
checked so by a youth ; nevertheless for that time they
had the grace to abstain, either for shame, or that
Minerva had infused into them a terror of Ulysses’ son.

So that day’s feast was concluded without bloodshed,
and the suitors, tired with their sports, departed sever¬
ally each man to his apartment. Only Ulysses and
Telemachus remained. And now Telemachus, by his
father’s direction, went and brought down into the hall
armor and lances from the armory : for Ulysses said :
“ On the morrow we shall have need of them.” And
moreover he said : “If any one shall ask why you have

148

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taken them down, say, it is to clean them and scour
them from the rust which they have gathered since the
owner of this house went for Troy.” And as Tele-
machus stood by the armor, the lights were all gone
out, and it was pitch-dark, and the armor gave out
glistening beams as of fire, and he said to his father :
“ The pillars of the house are on fire.” And his father
said : “ It is the gods who sit above the stars and have
power to make the night as light as day.” And he took
it for a good omen. And Telemachus fell to cleaning
and sharpening of the lances.

Now Ulysses had not seen his wife Penelope in all
the time since his return ; for the queen did not care to
mingle with the suitors at their banquets, but, as be¬
came one that had been Ulysses’ wife, kept much in
private, spinning and doing her excellent housewiferies
among her maids in the remote apartments of the palace.
Only upon solemn days she would come down and show
herself to the suitors. And Ulysses was filled with a
longing desire to see his wife again, whom for twenty
years he had not beheld, and he softly stole through the
known passages of his beautiful house, till he came
where the maids were lighting the queen through a
stately gallery that led to the chamber where she slept.
And when the maids saw Ulysses, they said: “It is
the beggar who came to the court to-day, about whom
all that uproar was stirred up in the hall : what does he
here?” But Penelope gave commandment that he
should be brought before her, for she said : “ It may be

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149

that he has travelled, and has heard something concern¬
ing Ulysses.”

Then was Ulysses right glad to hear himself named
by his queen, to find himself in nowise forgotten, nor
her great love towards him decayed in all that time that
he had been away. And he stood before his queen, and
she knew him not to be Ulysses, but supposed that he
had been some poor traveller. And she asked him of
what country he was.

He told her (as he had before told to Eumseus) that
he was a Cretan born, and however poor and cast down
he now seemed, no less a man than brother to Ido-
meneus, who was grandson to king Minos, and though
he now wanted bread, he had once had it in his power
to feast Ulysses. Then he feigned how Ulysses, sailing
for Troy, was forced by stress of weather to put his fleet
in at a port of Crete, where for twelve days he was his
guest, and entertained by him with all befitting guest-
rites ; and he described the garments which Ulysses had
on, by which Penelope knew that he had seen her lord.

In this manner Ulysses told his wife many tales of
himself, at most but painting, but painting so near to
the life, that the feeling of that which she took at her
ears became so strong, that the kindly tears ran down
her fair cheeks, while she thought upon her lord, dead
she thought him, and heavily mourned the loss of him,
whom she missed, whom she could not find, though in
very deed he stood so near her.

Ulysses was moved to see her weep, but kept his own

150 THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

eyes as dry as iron or horn in their lids, putting a bridle
upon his strong passion, that it should not issue to sight.

Then he told her how he had lately been at the court
of Thesprotia, and what he had learned concerning
Ulysses there, in order as he had delivered to Eumaeus :
and Penelope was won to believe that there might be a
possibility of Ulysses being alive, and she said: “I
dreamed a dream this morning. Metliought I had
twenty household fowl which did eat wheat steeped in
water from my hand, and there came suddenly from the
clouds a crook-beaked hawk who soused on them and
killed them all, trussing their necks, then took his flight
back up to the clouds. And in my dream methought
that I wept and made great moan for my fowls, and for
the destruction which the hawk had made ; and my
maids came about me to comfort me. And in the
height of my griefs the hawk came back, and lighting
upon the beam of my chamber, he said to me in a man’s
voice, which sounded strangely even in my dream, to
hear a hawk to speak : ‘ Be of good cheer,’ he said, ‘ O
daughter of Icarius ; for this is no dream which thou
hast seen, but that which shall happen to thee indeed.
Those household fowl which thou lamentest so without
reason, are the suitors who devour thy substance, even
as thou sawest the fowl eat from thy hand, and the
hawk is thy husband, who is coming to give death to the
suitors.’ And I awoke, and went to see to my fowls
if they were alive, whom I found eating wheat from
their troughs, all well and safe as before my dream.”

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151

Then said Ulysses: “This dream can endure no
other interpretation than that which the hawk gave to
it, who is your lord, and who is coming quickly to effect
all that his words told you.”

“Your words,” she said, “my old guest, are so sweet,
that would you sit and please me with your speech, my
ears would never let my eyes close their spheres for very
joy of your discourse ; but none that is merely mortal
can live without the death of sleep, so the gods who are
without death themselves have ordained it, to keep the
memory of our mortality in our minds, while we expe¬
rience that as much as we live we die every day : in
which consideration I will ascend my bed, which I have
nightly watered with my tears since he that was the joy
of it departed for that bad city ; ” she so speaking, be¬
cause she could not bring her lips to name the name of
Troy so much hated. So for that night they parted,
Penelope to her bed, and Ulysses to his son, and to the
armor and the lances in the hall, where they sat up all
night cleaning and watching by the armor.

Hisses slays the suitors of Penelope.

CHAPTER X.

The madness from above — The bow of Ulysses — The slaughter — The

conclusion.

When daylight appeared, a tumultuous concourse of
suitors again filled the hall ; and some wondered, and
some inquired what meant that glittering store of armor
and lances which lay on heaps by the entry of the door ;
and to all that asked Telemachus made reply, that he
had caused them to be taken down to cleanse them of
the rust and of the stain which they had contracted by
lying so long unused, even ever since his father went
for Troy ; and with that answer their minds were easily
satisfied. So to their feasting and vain rioting again
they fell. Ulysses by Telemachus’ order had a seat and
a mess assigned to him in the doorway, and he had his
eye ever on the lances. And it moved gall in some of
the great ones there present, to have their feast still
dulled with the society of that wretched beggar as they
deemed him, and they reviled and spurned at him with

their feet. Only there was one Philgetius, who had
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THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

153

something a better nature than the rest, that spake
kindly to him, and had his age in respect. He coming
up to Ulysses, took him by the hand with a kind of
fear, as if touched exceedingly with imagination of his
great worth, and said thus to him: “Hail! father
stranger ! my brows have sweat to see the injuries
which you have received, and my eyes have broke forth
in tears, when I have only thought that such being
oftentimes the lot of worthiest men, to this plight
Ulysses may be reduced, and that he now may wander
from place to place as you do ; for such who are com¬
pelled by need to range here and there, and have no
firm home to fix their feet upon, God keeps them in this
earth, as under water ; so are they kept down and de¬
pressed. And a dark thread is sometimes spun in the
fates of kings.”

At this bare likening of the beggar to Ulysses, Mi¬
nerva from heaven made the suitors for foolish joy to go
mad, and roused them to such a laughter as would never
stop, they laughed without power of ceasing, their eyes
stood full of tears for violent joys ; but fears and horrible
misgivings succeeded : and one among them stood up
and prophesied : “Ah, wretches!” he said, “ what mad¬
ness from heaven has seized you, that you can laugh ?
see you not that your meat drops blood ? a night, like
the night of death, wraps you about, you shriek without
knowing it ; your eyes thrust forth tears ; the fixed walls,
and the beam that bears the whole house up, fall blood ;
ghosts choke up the entry ; full is the hall with appari-

154

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

tions of murdered men ; mider your feet is hell ; the
sun falls from heaven, and it is midnight at noon.”
But like men whom the gods had infatuated to their de¬
struction, they mocked at his fears, and Eurymachus
said, “This man is surely mad, conduct him forth into
the market-place, set him in the light, for he dreams
that ’ tis night within the house.”

But Theoclymenus (for that was the prophet’s name),
whom Minerva had graced with a prophetic spirit, that
he foreseeing might avoid the destruction which awaited
them, answered and said : “ Eurymachus, I will not re¬
quire a guide of thee, for I have eyes and ears, the use
of both my feet, and a sane mind within me, and with
these I will go forth of the doors, because I know the
imminent evils which await all you that stay, by reason
of this poor guest who is a favorite with all the gods.”
So saying he turned his back upon those inhospitable
men, and went away home, and never returned to the
palace.

These words which he spoke were- not nnheard by
Telemachus, who kept still his eye upon his father, ex¬
pecting fervently when he would give the sign, which
was to precede the slaughter of the suitors.

They dreaming of no such thing, fell sweetly to their
dinner, as joying in the great store of banquet which
was heaped in full tables about them ; but there reigned
not a bitterer banquet planet in all heaven than that
which hung over them this day by secret destination of
Minerva.

THE ADVENTURES OF UEYSSES.

155

There was a bow which Ulysses left when he went
for Troy. It had lain by since that time, out of use and
unstrung, for no man had strength to draw that bow,
save Ulysses. So it had remained as a monument of
the great strength of its master. This bow, with the
quiver of arrows belonging thereto, Telemachus had
brought down from the armory on the last night along
with the lances ; and now Minerva, intending to do'
Ulysses an honor, put it into the mind of Telemachus-
to propose to the suitors to try who was strongest to
draw that bow ; and he promised that to the man who
should be able to draw that bow, his mother should be
given in marriage ; Ulysses’ wife, the prize to him who
should bend the bow of Ulysses.

There was great strife and emulation stirred up
among the suitors at those words of the prince Telem¬
achus. And to grace her son’s words, and to confirm
the promise which he had made, Penelope came and
showed herself that day to the suitors ; and Minerva
made her that she appeared never so comely in their
sight as that day, and they were inflamed with the be¬
holding of so much beauty, proposed as the prize of so
great manhood ; and they cried out, that if all those
heroes who sailed to Colchos for the rich purchase of
the golden-fleeced ram, had seen earth’s richer prize,
Penelope, they would not have made their voyage, but
would have vowed their valors and their lives to her, for
she was at all parts faultless.

And she said, “The gods have taken my beauty from

156

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

me, since my lord went for Troy.” But Telemaclius
willed his mother to depart and not be present at that
contest, for he said, “It may be, some rougher strife
shall chance of this, than may be expedient for a woman
to witness.” And she retired, she and her maids, and
left the hall.

Then the bow was brought into the midst, and a mark
was set up by prince Telemaclius : and lord Antinous as
the chief among the suitors had the first offer, and he
took the bow and fitting; an arrow to the string;, he strove
to bend it, but not with all his might and main could he
once draw together the ends of that tough bow ; and
when he found how vain a thing it was to endeavor to
draw Ulysses’ bow, he desisted, blushing for shame and
for mere anger. Then Eurymaclnis adventured, but
with no better success ; but as it had torn the hands of
Antinous, so did the bow tear and strain his hands, and
marred his delicate fingers, yet could he not once stir
the string'. Then called he to the attendants to bring
fat and unctuous matter, which melting at the fire, he
dipped the bow therein, thinking to supple it and make
it more pliable, but not with all the helps of art could
he succeed in making it to move. After him Eiodes,
and Amphinomus, and Polybus, and Eurynomus, and
Polyctorides, assayed their strength, but not any one of
them or of the rest of those aspiring suitors, had any
better luck ; yet not the meanest of them there but
thought himself well worthy of Ulysses’ wife, but to shoot

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157

with Ulysses’ bow the coinpletest champion among them
was by proof found too feeble.

Then Ulysses prayed them that he might have leave
to try ; and immediately a clamor was raised among the
suitors, because of his petition, and they scorned and
swelled with rage at his presumption, and that a beggar
should seek to contend in a game of such noble mastery.
But Telemachus ordered that the bow should be given
him, and that he should have leave to try, since they
had failed ; “for,” he said, “the bow is mine, to give
or to withhold : ” and none durst gainsay the priuce.

Then Ulysses gave a sign to his son, and he com¬
manded the doors of the hall to be made fast, and all
wondered at his words, but none could divine the cause.
And Ulysses took the bow into his hands, and before he
essayed to bend it, he surveyed it at all parts to see
whether, by long lying by, it had contracted any stiff¬
ness which hindered the drawing ; and as he was busied
in the curious surveying of his bow, some of the suitors
mocked him and said, “ Past doubt this man is a right
cunning archer, and knows his craft well. See how he
turns it over and over, and looks into it as if he could
see through the wood.” And others said, “We wish
some one would tell out gold into our laps but for so-
long a time as he shall be in drawing of that string.”'
But when he had spent some little time in making proof
of the bow, and had found it to be in good plight, like
as a harper in tuning of his harp draws out a string, with

such ease or much more did Ulysses draw to the head
11

158

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

the string of his own tough bow, and in letting of it go,
it twanged with such a shrill noise as a swallow makes
when it sings through the air ; which so much amazed
the suitors, that their colors came and went, and the
skies gave out a uoise of thunder, which at heart cheered
Ulysses, for he knew that now his long labors by the
disposal of the fates drew to an end. Then fitted he an
arrow to the bow, and drawing it to the head, he sent it
right to the mark which the prince had set up. Which
done, he said to Telemaclius, “Yon have got no dis¬
grace yet by your guest, for I have struck the mark I
shot at, and gave myself no such trouble in teasing the
bow with fat and fire, as these men did, but have made
proof that my strength is not impaired, nor my age so
weak and contemptible as these were pleased to think
it. But come, the day going down calls us to supper,
after which succeed poem and harp, and all delights
which use to crown princely banquetings.”

So saying, he beckoned to his sou, who straight girt
his sword to his side, and took one of the lauces (of
which there lay great store from the armory) in his hand,
and armed at all points, advanced toward his father.

The upper rags which Ulysses wore fell from his
■shoulder, and his own kingly likeness returned, when
he rushed to the great hall door with bow and quiver
full of shafts, which down at his feet he poured, and in
bitter words presignified his deadly intent to the suitors.
“Thus far,” he said, “this contest has been decided
harmless : now for us there rests another mark, harder

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159

to hit, but which my hands shall essay notwithstanding,
if Phoebus, god of archers, be pleased to give me
mastery.” With that he let fly a deadly arrow at
Antinous, which pierced him in the throat as he was in
the act of lifting a cup of wine to his mouth. Amaze¬
ment seized the suitors, as their great champion fell
dead, and they raged highly against Ulysses, and said
that it should prove the dearest shaft which he ever let
fly, for he had slain a man, whose like breathed not in
any part of the kingdom : and they flew to their arms,
and would have seized the lances, but Minerva struck
them with dimness of sight that they went erring up
and down the hall, not knowing where to find them.
Yet so infatuated were they by the displeasure of heaven,
that they did not see the imminent peril which impended
over them, but every man believed that this accident
had happened beside the intention of the doer. Fools !
to think by shutting their eyes to evade destiny, or that
any other cup remained for them, but that which their
great Antinous had tasted !

Then Ulysses revealed himself to all in that presence,
and that he was the man whom they held to be dead at
Troy, whose palace they had usurped, whose wife in his
lifetime they had sought in impious marriage, and that
for this reason destruction was come upon them. And
he dealt his deadly arrows among them, and there was no
avoiding him, nor escaping from his horrid person, and
Telemachus by his side plied them thick with those
murderous lances from which there was no retreat, till

160

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

fear itself made them valiant, and danger gave them
eyes to understand the peril ; then they which had
swords drew them, and some with shields, that could
find them, and some with tables and benches snatched
up in haste, rose in a mass to overwhelm and crush
those two ; yet they singly bestirred themselves like
men, and defended themselves against that great host,
and through tables, shields and all, right through the
arrows of Ulysses clove, and the irresistible lances of
Telemachus ; and many lay dead, and all had wounds,
and Minerva in the likeness of a bird sat upon the beam
which went across the hall, and clapping her wings
with a fearful noise, and sometimes the great bird would
fly among them, cuffing at the swords and at the lances,
and up and down the hall would go, beating her wings,
and troubling everything, that it was frightful to behold,
and it frayed the blood from the cheeks of those heaven-
hated suitors : but to Ulysses and his son she appeared
in her own divine similitude, with her snake-fringed
shield, a goddess armed, fighting their battles. Nor
did that dreadful pair desist till they had laid all their
foes at their feet. At their feet they lay in shoals ;
like fishes, when the fishermen break up their nets,
so they lay gasping and sprawling at the feet of
Ulysses and his son. And Ulysses remembered the
prediction of Tiresias, which said that he was to perish by
his own guests, unless he slew those who knew him not.

Then certain of the queen’s household went up and
told Penelope what had happened, and how her lord

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161

Ulysses had come home, and had slain the suitors. But
she gave no heed to their words, but thought that some
frenzy possessed them, or that they mocked her : for it
is the property of such extremes of sorrow as she had
felt, not to believe when any great joy cometh. And
she rated and chid them exceedingly for troubling her.
But they the more persisted in their asseverations of
the truth of what they had affirmed ; and some of
them had seen the slaughtered bodies of the suitors
dragged forth of the hall. And they said, “That poor
guest whom you talked with last night was Ulysses.”
Then she was yet more fully persuaded that they
mocked her, and she wept. But they said, “This thing
is true which we have told. We sat within, in an inner
room in the palace, and the doors of the hall were shut
on us, but we heard the cries and the groans of the men
that were killed, but saw nothing, till at length your
son called to us to come in, and entering we saw
Ulysses standing in the midst of the slaughtered.” But
she persisting in her unbelief, said, that it was some
god which had deceived them to think it was the person
of Ulysses.

By this time Telemachus and his father had cleansed
their hands from the slaughter, and were come to where
the queen was talking with those of her household ;
and when she saw Ulysses, she stood motionless, and
had no power to speak, sudden surprise and joy and
fear and many passions so strove within her. Some¬
times she was clear that it was her husband that she

162

THE ADVENTURES OF UEYSSES.

saw, and sometimes the alterations which twenty years
had made in his person (yet that was not much) per¬
plexed her that she knew not what to think, and for joy
she could not believe ; and yet for joy she would not
but believe ; and, above all, that sudden change from a
beggar to a king troubled her, and wrought uneasy
scruples in her mind. But Telemachus seeing her
strangeness, blamed her, and called her an ungentle and
tyrannous mother ! and said that she showed a too great
curiousness of modesty, to abstain from embracing his
father, and to have doubts of his person, when to all
it was evident that he was the real and true Ulysses.

Then she mistrusted no longer, but ran and fell upon
Ulysses’ neck, and said, “ Uet not my husband be angry,
that I held off so long with strange delays ; it is the
gods, who severing us for so long time, have caused this
unseemly distance in me. If Menelaus’ wife had used
half my caution, she would never have taken so freely
to a stranger’s bed; and she might have spared us all
these plagues which have come upon us through her
shameless deed.”

These words with which Penelope excused herself,,
wrought more affection in Ulysses than if upon a first
sight she had given up herself implicitly to his embraces ;
and he wept for joy to possess a wife so discreet, so-
answering to his own staid mind, that had a depth of
wit proportioned to his own, and one that held chaste
virtue at so high a price, and he thought the possession
of such a one cheaply purchased with the loss of all

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163

Circe’s delights, and Calypso’s immortality of joys ; and
his long labors and his severe sufferings past seemed as
nothing, now they were crowned with the enjoyment of
his virtuous and true wife Penelope. And as sad men
at sea whose ship has gone to pieces nigh shore, swim¬
ming for their lives, all drenched in foam and brine,
crawl up to some poor patch of land, which they take
possession of with as great a joy as if they had the
world given them in fee, with such delight did this
chaste wife cling to her lord restored, till the dark night
fast coming on reminded her of that more intimate and
happy union when in her long-widowed bed she should
once again clasp a living Ulysses.

So from that time the land had rest from the suitors.
And the happy Ithacans with songs and solemn sacrifices
of praise to the gods celebrated the return of Ulysses :
for he that had been so long absent was returned to
wreak the evil upon the heads of the doers ; in the place
where they had done the evil, there wreaked he his
vengeance upon them.

INDEX OF PROPER NAMES.

signifies a short vowel sound, - signifies a long vowel sound,
/ signifies that the accent falls on the syllable so marked. Pronounce
ch as k ; ae as e.

Acheron. A river of Hades.

Achilles. The principal Greek hero of the Trojan war.

Aeea. The island where Circe lived.

Aegisthus. The murderer of Agamemnon.

Aeolus. Ruler of the winds.

Agamemnon. Greek hero of the Trojan war. Husband of Clyt-
emuestra.

Ajax. Greek hero of the Trojan war.

Alcinous. King of the Phaeacians.

Amphinomus. One of the suitors.

Antinous. One of Penelope’s suitors.

Antiphas. The Rsestrygonian monarch.

Arcesius. Grandfather of Ulysses.

Argo. The ship in which Jason fetched the golden fleece.

Atreus. Father of Agamemnon.

Bootes. The constellation of the kittle Bear.

Bbreas. The north wind.

(165)

166

INDEX.

Cadmus. King of Thebes.

Calliroe. A river of Phasacia.

Calypso. The goddess who entertained Ulysses in the island of
Ogygia.

Castor. Brother of Pollux, and endowed after death with immor¬
tality.

Charybdis. Scylla and Charybdis were the monsters dwelling by
the whirlpools which Ulysses had to avoid.

Cicons. A people of Thrace.

Circe. The goddess who changed Ulysses’s comrades into swine.
Clymene.

Clytemnestra. Wife of Agamemnon.

Cocytus. A river of the lower world.

Cyclops. The one-eyed giants of Sicily ; one of the Cyclops was
Polyphemus.

Cythera. An island off the southern extremity of Greece.

Deiphobus. A son of Priam, king of Troy.

Delos. An island in the Aegean Sea.

Demodocus. Minstrel at the Court of Phaeacia.

Dodona. A famous Greek oracle.

Dulichium. An island belonging to the kingdom of Ithaca.

Echetus.

Ephialtes. A son of Neptune, famous for his superhuman
strength.

Eriphyle.

Eumaeus. The herdsman of Ulysses.

Eurus. The east wind.

Eurylochus. One of the followers of Ulysses.

Eurymachus and Euryn5mus. Suitors of Penelope.

Hebe. Daughter of Zeus, or Jupiter ; the cup-bearer of the gods.

INDEX.

167

Icarius. Father of Penelope.

Idomeneus. Deader of the Cretans in the Trojan war.
iuo Leucothea. A goddess of the sea.

Iphimedeia. Mother of Otus and Ephialtes.

Irus. The bragging but cowardly beggar at the suitors’ table.
Ismarus. A town belonging to the Cicons.

Ithaca. An island off the coast of Epirus, of which Ulysses was
king.

Laertes. Father of Ulysses.

Laestrygonlans. The cannibal tribe whom Ulysses encountered
on his wanderings.

Latona. Mother of Apollo and Artemis.

Leda. Mother of Castor and Pollux.

Liodes. One of Penelope’s suitors.

Malea. A promontory on the south coast of Greece.

Menelaus. A Greek hero, husband of Helen of Troy and
brother of Agamemnon.

Mentor. A counsellor of Ulysses and guardian of his son Telem-
achus.

Mercury. The Roman name (Mercurius) of the Greek god
Hermes.

Minerva. The Roman equivalent of the Greek goddess Athene.
Minos. One of the judges of the dead in Hades.

Naiads. Nymphs or goddesses presiding over rivers and lakes.
Nausicaa. The Phaeacian princess.

Neoptolemus. Son of Achilles.

Nerytus. A mountain in Ithaca.

Nestor. A Greek hero, famous for his wisdom.

Notus. The south wind.

168

INDEX.

Ogygia. The island where Calypso dwelt.

Olympus. A mountain in Greece supposed to he the home of the
gods.

Orchomen. A city of Bceotia in Greece.

Orestes. Son of Agamemnon.

Orion. A mighty hunter, after death transformed into a constel¬
lation.

Ossa. A mountain in Thessaly.

Otus. Brother of Ephialtes.

Panopeus.

Peleus. Father of Achilles.

Pelion. A mountain in Thessaly.

Penelope. Ulysses’ wife.

Phaeacians. The nation ruled by Alcinous ; they were an imag¬
inary people.

Phaedra. Daughter of Minos and wife of Theseus.

Philaetius. One of Penelope’s suitors.

Phoebus. An epithet of the sun-god Apollo— “ the shining one.”
Plena. A mountainous tract of Macedonia.

PIrithous. He tried to carry off Proserpine, goddess of Hades,
but failed.

Pleiads. A constellation.

Pluto. The god of the lower world.

PSlybus and P51yct5rides. Suitors of Penelope.

PSlyphemus. The one-eyed Cyclop.

Proserpine. The Roman name for Persephone, goddess of the
lower world.

PyriphlggSthon. A river of the lower world.

Pytho. Seat of a famous oracle.

S&m6s. An island in the A3gaean Sea.

INDEX.

169

Scylla. The monster who dwelt by the whirlpool opposite
Charybdis.

Scyros. An island in the AJgseau Sea.

Sirens. Nymphs whose songs charmed all passers-by and lured
them to destruction.

Sisyphus. A wicked king of Corinth, punished after death as
described in the text.

Solymi. Mountains in Lycia of Asia Minor.

Tdntalus.

Telamon. Father of Ajax.

Telemachus. Son of Ulysses.

Theseus. A famous legendary Athenian hero.

Thesprotia. A district on the coast of Epirus.

Thetis. A goddess of the sea, mother of Achilles.

Tiresias. A famous blind prophet or soothsayer.

Tityus. A wicked giant.

Trinacria. The three-cornered land, another name for Sicily.
Tyndarus. Father of Castor and of Clytemnestra and Helen.

Zacynthus. An island in the Ionian Sea.

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